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William, frontispiece 



William the Conqueror. 




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ALTE/nUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY 



HISTORY 

or 

William the Conquizror 




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j "* Vil. Cofttb RtCtlvED 

1 SEP 34 1900 

I Co^ynihl entry 

SECOND COPY. 

0(>llv«r«d to 

OhOt« DIVISION, 
OCT 1 1900 



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CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Normandy 1 

CHAPTER II. 
Birth of William 17 

CHAPTER III. 
The Accession 36 

CHAPTER IV. 
William's Reign in Normandy 55 

CHAPTER V. 
The Marriage o . . . 75 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Lady Emma 96 

CHAPTER VII. 
King Harold 117 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Preparations for the Invasion 139 

CHAPTER IX. 
Crossing the Channel 160 

CHAPTER X. 
The Battle of Hastings 180 

CHAPTER XI. 
Prince Robert's Rebellion 207 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Conclusion 228 

Y 



v: 




ILLUSTRATIONS. 



William the Conqueror 

Norman and Saxon Arms 

Tailpiece ..... 

A Saxon Ship .... 

Headpiece, Chapter I. . 

Map, Location of Normandy 

Scene in Ancient England . 

Headpiece, Chapter II. 

Castle of Falaise and Fountain of Arlotte 

A Norman Ship .... 

Headpiece, Chapter III. 

Ancient Paris .... 

Norman Attack on a French Castle 

Saxon Arms and Trumpets . 

Headpiece, Chapter IV. 

Matilda, Wife of William the Conqueror 

Headpiece, Chapter V. 

Designs from the Bayeux Tapestry 

Normans Embarking for England . 

Headpiece, Chapter VI. 

Meeting of Canute and Edmund . 

Norman Duke and Retainers 

Headpiece, Chapter VII. 

Harold's Interview with Edward . 

William Dictates the Oath to Harold 

Historical Map of England . 



facine 



Frontispiece. 

page vi 

" viii 

" X 

' 1 

' 2 

' 16 

' 17 

27 

' 35 

' 36 

• 38 

50 

54 

55 

74 

75 

80 

95 

96 

105 

116 

117 

122 

133 

138 



(yii) 



Vlll 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Headpiece, Chapter VIII. . 
Statue of William the Conqueror, 
King Canute 
Headpiece, Chapter IX. 
Map of Normandy 
" Thus I Seize this Land " . 
Headpiece, Chapter X. 
Before the Battle of Hastings 
The Finding of Harold's Body 
Hawking in WilUam's Reign 
Headpiece, Chapter XI. 
Coronation of William the Conqueror 
Robert Asking his Father's Pardon 
Reconciliation of William and Robert 
Headpiece, Chapter XII. 
Forbidding the Burial of William . 



page 139 


facing "152 


. " 159 


. " 160 


. " 161 


facing "176 


. . " 180 


. " 195 


facing " 204 


. " 206 


. " 207 


facing " 212 


" " 224 


. " 227 


. " 228 


. " 249 


i^m^.c 




INTRODUCTORY. 



The youth of William the Conqueror was 
passed in difficulties and danger, but by the 
help of Henry I. of France he was able to 
hold his duchy in Normandy. He was a 
cousin of Edward the Confessor, and from him 
received the promise of the English succes- 
sion. Harold was made king, however, upon 
the death of Edward, and Duke William, after 
laying his claim before the Pope and Western 
Christendom, embarked for England and de- 
feated Harold at Hastings. 

William was then crowned King of Eng- 
land, and from that time the social organiza- 
tion of England began to take form. His rule 
was stern, yet orderly, although the constitu- 
tion was decidedly feudal in character. His 
council was composed of his tenants-in-chief, 
all title to land being derived from his grant. 
He brought the English Church into closer re- 
lations with Rome. Passionately fond of the 
chase, he devastated a large tract to form the 
New Forest, and heavily punished any breach 
of his forest laws. At his death, William left 
Normandy to his son Robert, and England to 
his son William, called Rufus. 

(ix) 



2 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



Normandy, William's native land, is a very 
rich and beautiful province in the north of 
France. The following map shows its situa- 
tion : 




It lies, as will be seen upon the map, on the 
coast of France, adjoining the English channel. 
The channel is here irregular in form, but may- 
be, perhaps, on the average, one hundred miles 



NORMANDY. 



wide. The line of coast on the southern side 
of the channel, which forms, of course, the 
northern border of Normandy, is a range of 
cliffs, which are almost perpendicular toward 
the sea, and which frown forbiddingly upon 
every ship that sails along the shore. Here 
and there, it is true, a river opens a passage 
for itself among these cliffs from the interior, 
and these river mouths would form harbors 
into which ships might enter from the offing, 
were it not that the northwestern winds prevail 
so generally, and drive such a continual swell 
of rolling surges in upon the shore, that they 
choke up all these estuary openings, as well as 
every natural indentation of the land, with 
shoals and bars of sand and shingle. The 
reverse is the case with the northern, or Eng- 
lish shore of this famous channel. There the 
harbors formed by the mouths of the rivers, or 
by the sinuosities of the shore, are open and 
accessible, and at the same time sheltered 
from the winds and the sea. Thus, while the 
northern or English shore has been for many 
centuries all the time enticing the seaman in 
and out over the calm deep and sheltered waters 
which there penetrate the land, the southern 
side has been an almost impassable barrier 
consisting of a long line of frowning cliffs with 
every opening through it choked with shoals 
and sand banks and guarded by the rolling and 
tumbling of surges which scarcely ever rest. 



4 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

It is in a great measure owing to these great 
physical differences between the two shores, 
that the people who live upon the one side, 
though of the same stock and origin with those 
who live upon the other, have become so vastly 
superior to them in respect to naval exploits 
and power. They are really of the same stock 
and origin, since both England and the northern 
part of France were overrun and settled by what 
is called the Scandinavian race, that is, people 
from Norway, Denmark, and other countries 
on the Baltic. These people were called the 
Northmen in the histories of those times. 
Those who landed in England are generally 
termed Danes, though but a small portion of 
them came really from Denmark. They were 
all, however, of the same parent stock, and 
possessed the same qualities of courage, energy, 
and fearless love of adventure and of danger 
which distinguish their descendants at the pres- 
ent day. They came down in those early times 
in great military hordes, and in fleets of pirat- 
ical ships, through the German Ocean and the 
various British seas, braving every hardship 
and every imaginable danger, to find new 
regions to dwell in more genial, and fertile, 
and rich than their own native northern climes. 
In these days they evince the same energy, 
and endure equal privations and hardships, in 
hunting whales in the Pacific Ocean ; in over- 
running India, and seizing its sources of wealth 



NORMANDY. 6 

and power; or in sallying forth, whole fleets 
of adventurers at a time, to go more than half 
round the globe, to dig for gold in California. 
The times and circumstances have changed, but 
the race and spirit are the same. 

Normandy takes its name from the North- 
men. It was the province in France which the 
Northmen made peculiarly their own. They 
gained access to it from the sea by the river 
Seine, which, as will be seen from the map, 
flows, as it were, through the heart of the 
country. The lower part of this river, and the 
sea around its mouth, are much choked up with 
sand and gravel, which the waves have been for 
ages washing in. Their incessant industry 
would result in closing up the passage entirely, 
were it not that the waters of the river must 
have an outlet, and thus the current, setting 
outward, wages perpetual war with the surf and 
surges which are continually breaking in. The 
expeditions of the Northmen, however, found 
their way through all these obstructions. 
They ascended the river with their ships, and 
finally gained a permanent settlement in the 
country. They had occupied the country for 
some centuries at the time when our story be- 
gins — the province being governed by a line of 
princes — almost, if not quite, independent 
sovereigns — called the Dukes of Normandy. 

The first Duke of Normandy, and the founder 
of the line — the chieftain who originally in- 



6 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

vacled and conquered the country — was a wild 
and half-savage hero frora the north, named 
Kollo. He is often, in history, called Eollo 
the Dane. Norway was his native land. He 
was a chieftain by birth there, and, being of a 
wild and adventurous disposition, he collected 
a band of followers, and committed with them 
so many piracies and robberies that, at 
length, the king of the country expelled him. 

Eiollo seems not to have considered this ban- 
ishment as any very great calamity, since, far 
from interrupting his career of piracy and 
plunder, it only widened the field on which he 
was to pursue it. He accordingly increased 
the equipment and the force of his fleet, en- 
listed more followers, and set sail across the 
northern part of the German Ocean toward the 
British shores. 

Off the northwestern coast of Scotland there 
are some groups of mountains and gloomy 
islands, which have been, in many different 
periods of the world, the refuge of fugitives 
and outlaws. Eollo made these islands his 
rendezvous now ; and he found collected there 
many other similar spirits, who had fled to 
these lonely retreats, some on account of polit- 
ical disturbances in which they had become in- 
volved, and some on account of their crimes. 
EoUo's impetuous, ardent, and self-confident 
character inspired tbem with new energy and 
zeal. They gathered around him as their 



NORMANDY. 7 

leader. Finding his strength thus increasing, he 
formed a scheme of concentrating all the force 
that he could command, so as to organize a 
grand expedition to proceed to the southward, 
and endeavor to find some pleasant country 
which they could seize and settle upon, and 
make their own. The desperate adventurers 
around him were ready enough to enter into 
this scheme. The fleet was refitted, pro- 
visioned, and equipped. The expedition was 
organized, arms and munitions of war pro- 
vided, and when all was ready they set sail. 
They had no definite plan in respect to the 
place of their destination, their intention being 
to make themselves a home on the first favor- 
able spot that they should find. 

They moved southward, cruising at first 
along the coast of Scotland, aud then of Eng- 
land. They made several fruitless attempts to 
land on the English shores, but were every- 
where repulsed. The ti'^ne when these events 
took place was during the reign of Alfred the 
Great. Through Alfred's wise and efficient 
measures the whole of his frontier had been 
put into a perfect state of defense, and KoUo 
found that there was no hope for him there. 
He accordingly moved on tovv'ard the Straits of 
Dover; but, before passing them, he made a 
descent upon the coast of Flanders. Here there 
was a country named Hainault. It was 
governed by a potentate called the Count of 



8 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Hainault. Eollo made war upon him, defeated 
him in battle, took him prisoner, and then 
compelled the countess his wife to raise and 
pay him an immense sum for his ransom. 
Thus he replenished his treasury by an exploit 
which was considered in those days very great 
and glorious. To perpetrate such a deed now, 
unless it were on a very great scale, would be 
to incur the universal reprobation of mankind ; 
but Hollo, by doing it then, not only enriched 
his coffers, but acquired a very extended and 
honorable fame. 

For some reason or other, Rollo did not 
attempt to take permanent possession of Hain- 
ault, but, after receiving his ransom money, 
and replenishing his ammunition and stores, 
he sailed away with" his fleet, and, turning 
westward, he passed through the Straits of 
Dover, and cruised along the coast of France. 
He found that the country on the French side 
of the channel, though equally rich and beauti- 
ful with the opposite shore, was in a very 
different state of defense. He entered the 
mouth of the Seine. He was embarrassed at 
first by the difficulties of the navigation in 
entering the river ; but as there was no efficient 
enemy to oppose him, ho soon triumphed over 
these difficulties, and, once fairly in the river, 
he found no difficulty in ascending to Kouen.* 

* See the map, page 2. 



NORMANDY. 9 

In the meantime, the King of France, "whose 
name was Charles, and who is generally desig- 
nated in history as Charles the Simjjle, began 
to collect an army to meet the invader. Rollo, 
however, had made himself master of Eouen 
before Charles was ready to offer him any 
effectual opposition. Rouen was already a 
strong place, but Rollo made it stronger. He 
enlarged and repaired the fortifications, built 
storehouses, established a garrison, and, in a 
word, made all the arrangements requisite for 
securing an impregnable position for himself 
and his army. 

A long and obstinate war followed between 
Rollo and Charles, Rollo being almost uni- 
formly victorious in the combats that took 
place. Rollo became more and more proud 
and imperious in proportion to his success. 
He drove the French king from port to port, 
and from field to field, until he made himself 
master of a large part of the north of France, 
over which he gradually established a regular 
government of his own. Charles struggled in 
vain to resist these encroachments. Rollo con- 
tinually defeated him ; and finally he shut him 
up and besieged him in Paris itself. At 
length Charles was compelled to enter into 
negotiations for peace, Rollo demanded that 
the large and rich tract on both sides of the 
Seine, next the sea — the same, in fact, that 
now constitutes Normandy — should be ceded to 



10 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

him and his followers for their permanent pos- 
session. Charles was extremelj' unwilling thus 
to alienate a part of his kingdom. He would 
not consent to cede it absolutely and entirely, 
so as to make it an independent realm. It 
should be a dukedom, and not a separate king- 
dom, so that it might continue still a part of 
his own royal domains — Rollo to reign over it 
as a duke, and to acknowledge a general alle- 
giance to the French king. Eollo agreed to 
this. The war had been now protracted so 
long that he began himself to desire repose. 
It was more than thirty years since the time 
of his landing. 

Charles had a daughter named Giselle, and 
it was a part of the treaty of peace that she 
should become Rollo's wife. He also agreed 
to become a Christian. Thus there were, in 
the execution of the treaty, three ceremonies 
to be performed. First, Eollo was to do hom- 
age, as it was called, for his duchy ; for it was 
the custom in those days for subordinate 
princes, who held their possessions of some 
higher and more strictly sovereign power, to 
perform certain ceremonies in the presence of 
their superior lord, which was called doing 
homage. These ceremonies were of various 
kinds in different countries, though they were 
all intended to express the submission of the 
dependent prince to the superior authority and 
power of the higher potentate of whom he held 



NORMANDY. 11 

his lands. This act of homage -was therefore 
to be performed, and next to the homage was 
to come the baptism, and after the baptism, the 
marriage. 

When, however, the time came for the per- 
formance of the first of these ceremonies, and 
all the great chieftains and potentates of the 
respective armies were assembled to witness it, 
Eollo, it was found, would not submit to what 
the customs of the French monarchy required. 
He ought to kneel before the king, and put his 
hands, clasjjed together, between the king's 
hands, in token of submission, and then to 
kiss his foot, which was covered with an ele- 
gantly fashioned slipper on such occasions. 
Eollo would do all except the last; but that, 
no remonstrances, urgencies, or persuasions 
would induce him to consent to. 

And yet it was not a very unusual sign or 
token of political subordination to sovereign 
power in those days. The pope had exacted it 
even of an emperor a hundred years before ; and 
it is continued by that dignitary to the pres- 
ent day, on certain state occasions ; though, in 
the case of the pope, there is embroidered on 
the slipper which the kneeling suppliant 
kisses, a cross, so that he who humbles him- 
self to this ceremony may consider, if he 
pleases, that it is that sacred symbol of the 
divine Kedeemer's sufferings and death that he 
so reverently kisses, and not the human foot 
by which it is covered. 



12 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Rollo could not be made to consent, himself, 
to kiss King Charles' foot; and, finally, the 
difficulty was compromised by his agreeing to 
do it by proxy. He ordered one of his cour- 
tiers to perform that part of the ceremony. 
The courtier obeyed, but when he came to lift 
the foot, he did it so rudely and lifted it so 
high as to turn the monarch over off his seat. 
This made a laugh, but Eollo was too power- 
ful for Charles to think of resenting it. 

A few days after this Rollo was baptized in 
the cathedral church at Kouen, with great 
pomp and parade ; and then, on the following 
week, he was married to Giselle. The din of 
war in which he had lived for more than thirty 
years was now changed into festivities and re- 
joicings. He took full and peaceable posses- 
sion of his dukedom, and governed it for the 
remainder of his days with great wisdom, and 
lived in great prosperity. He made it, in 
fact, one of the richest and most prosperous 
realms in Europe, and laid the foundations of 
still higher degrees of greatness and power, 
which were gradually developed after his 
death. And this was the origin of Normandy. 

It appears thus that this part of France was 
seized by Rollo and his Northmen partly be- 
cause it was nearest at hand to them, being 
accessible from the English channel through 
the river Seine, and partly on account of its 
exceeding richness and fertility. It has been 



NORMANDY. 13 

famous in every age as the garden of France, 
and travelers at the present day gaze upon its 
picturesque and beautiful scenery with the 
highest admiration and pleasure. And yet the 
scenes which are there presented to the view 
are wholly unlike those which constitute pic- 
turesque and beautiful rural scenery in England 
and America. In Normandy, the land is not 
inclosed. No hedges, fences, or walls break 
the continuity of the surface, but vast tracts 
spread in every direction, divided into plots 
and squares, of various sizes and forms, by the 
varieties of cultivation, like a vast carpet of an 
irregular tesselated pattern, and varied in the 
color by a thousand hues of brown and green. 
Here and there vast forests extend, where 
countless thousands of trees, though ancient 
and venerable in form, stand in rows, mathe- 
matically arranged, as they were planted cen- 
turies ago. These are royal demesnes, and 
hunting grounds, and parks connected with the 
country palaces of the kings or the chateaux of 
the ancient nobility. The cultivators of the 
soil live, not, as in America, in little farm- 
houses built along the roadsides and dotting 
the slopes of the hills, but in compact villages, 
consisting of ancient dwellings of brick or stone, 
densely packed together along a single street, 
from which the laborers issue, in picturesque 
dresses, men and women together, every morn- 
ing, to go miles, perhaps, to the scene of their 



14 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

daily toil. Except these villages, and the oc- 
casional appearance of an ancient chateau, no 
habitations are seen. The country seems a 
vast solitude, teeming everywhere, however, 
with fertility and beauty. The roads which 
traverse these scenes are magnificent avenues, 
broad, straight, continuing for many miles an 
undeviating course over the undulations of the 
land, with nothing to separate them from the 
expanse of cultivation and fruitfulness on 
either hand but rows of ancient and venerable 
trees. Between these rows of trees the traveler 
sees an interminable vista extending both be- 
fore him and behind him. In England, the 
public road winds beautifully between walls 
overhung with shrubbery, or hedgerows, with 
stiles or gateways here and there, revealing 
hamlets or cottages, which appear and disap- 
pear in a rapid and endlessly varied succession, 
as the road meanders, like a rivulet, between 
its beautiful banks. In a word, the public 
highway in England is beautiful; in France 
it is grand. 

The greatest city in Normandy in modern 
times is Eouen, which is situated, as will be 
seen by referring to the map at the commence- 
ment of this chapter, on the Seine, halfway 
between Paris and the sea. At the mouth of 
the Seine, or, rather, on the northern shore of 
the estuary which forms the mouth of the river, 
is a small inlet, which has been found to 



NORMANDY. 15 

afford, on the whole, the best facilities for a 
harbor that can be found on the whole line of 
the coast. Even this little port, however, is so 
filled up with sand, that when the water recedes 
at low tide it leaves the shipping all aground. 
The inlet would, in fact, probably become filled 
up entirely were it not for artificial means 
taken to prevent it. There are locks and gate- 
ways built in such a manner as to retain a large 
body of water until the tide is down, and then 
these gates are opened, and the water is al- 
lowed to rush out all together, carrying with 
it the mud and sand which had begun to ac- 
cumulate. This haven, being, on the whole, 
the best and and most commodious on the coast, 
was called the harbor, or, as the French ex- 
pressed it in their language, le havre, the word 
hav7'e meaning harbor. In fact, the name was 
in full le havre le grace, as if the Normans 
considered it a matter of special good luck to 
have even such a chance of a harbor as this at 
the mouth of their river. The English world 
have, however, dropped all except the principal 
word from this long phrase of designation, 
and call the port simply Havre. 

From Eollo the line of Dukes of Normandy 
continued in uninterrupted succession down to 
the time of William, a period of about a hun- 
dred and fifty years. The country increased 
all the time in wealth, in population, and in 



16 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

prosperity. The original inhabitants were 
not, however, expelled; they remained as peas- 
ants, herdsmen, and agriculturists, while the 
Norman chieftains settled over them, holding 
severally large estates of laud which William 
granted them. The races gradually became 
intermingled, though they continued for many 
centuries to evince the superior spirit and ener- 
gy which was infused into the population by the 
Norman stock. In fact, it is thought by 
many observers that that superiority continues 
to the present day. 




Scene in Ancient England, 




CHAPTEE II. 



BIETH OF WILLIAM 



Although Eouen is now very far before all 
the other cities of Normandy in point of mag- 
nitude and importance, and though Eollo, 
in his conquest of the country, made it 
his principal headquarters and his main 
stronghold, it did not continue exclusively the 
residence of the Dukes of Normandy in after 
years. The father of William the Conqueror 
was Eobert, who became subsequently the duke, 
the sixth in the line. He resided, at the time 
when William was born, in a great castle at 
Falaise. Falaise, as will be seen upon the 
map, is west of Eouen, and it stands, like 
Eouen, at some distance from the sea. The castle 
was built upon a hill, at a little distance from 
the town. It has long since ceased to be habi- 
table, but the ruins still remain, giving a pic- 
turesque but mournful beauty to the eminence 
which they crown. They are often visited by 
travelers, who go to see the place where the 
great hero and conqueror was born. 

The hill on which the old castle stands ter- 
minates, on one side, at the foot of the castle 

17 



18 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

walls, in a precipice of rocks, and on two other 
sides, also, the ascent is too steep to be practi- 
cable for an enemy. On the fourth side there is 
a more gradual declivity, up which the fortress 
could be approached by means of a winding 
roadway. At the foot of this roadway was the 
town. The access to the castle from the town 
was defended by a ditch and drawbridge, with 
strong towers on each side of the gateway to 
defend the approach. There was a beautiful 
stream of water which meandered along 
through the valley, near the town, and, after 
passing it, it disappeared, winding around 
the foot of the precipice which the castle 
crowned. The castle inclosures were shut in 
with walls of stone of enormous thickness; so 
thick, in fact, they were, that some of the 
apartments were built in the body of the wall. 
There were various buildings within the inclos- 
ure. There was, in particular, one large, square 
tower, several stories in height, built of white 
stone. This tower, it is said, still stands, in 
good preservation. There was a chapel, also, and 
various other buildings and apartments within 
the walls, for the use of the ducal family and 
their numerous retinue of servants and attend- 
ants, for the storage of munitions of war, and for 
the garrison. There were watch-towers on the 
corners of the walls, and on various lofty pro- 
jecting pinnacles, where solitary sentinels 
watched, the livelong day and night, for any 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 19 

approaching danger. These sentinels looked 
down on a broad expanse of richlj -cultivated 
country, fields beautified with groves of trees, 
and with the various colors presented by the 
changing vegetation, while meandering streams 
gleamed wiih their silvery radiance among 
them, and hamlets of laborers and peasantry 
were scattered here and there, giving life and 
animation to the scene. 

We have said that William's father was 
Robert, the sixth Duke of Normandy, so that 
William himself, being his immediate succes- 
sor, was the seventh in the line. And as it is 
t*he design of these narratives not merely to 
amuse the reader with what is entertaining as 
a tale, but to impart substantial historical 
knowledge, we must prepare the way for the 
accountof William's birth, by presenting a brief 
chronological view of the whole ducal line, ex- 
tending from Eollo to William. We recom- 
mend to the reader to examine with special 
attention this brief account of William's ances- 
try, for the true causes which led to William's 
invasion of England cannot be fully appre- 
ciated without thoroughly understanding 
certain important transactions in which some 
members of the family of his ancestors were 
concerned before he was born. This is partic- 
ularly the case with the Lady Emma, who, as 
will be seen by the following summary, was 
the sister of the third duke in the line. The 



20 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

extraordinary and eventful history of her life 
is so intimately connected with the subsequent 
exploits of William, that it is necessary to re- 
late it in full, and it becomes, accordingly, the 
subject of one of the subsequent chapters of 
this volume. 

CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE NORMAN LINE. 

RoLLO, first Duke of Normandy. 
From A.D. »12 to A.D. 917. 

It was about 870 that Eollo was banished 
from Norway, and a few years after that, at 
most, that he lauded in France. It was not, 
however, until 912 that he concluded his treaty 
of peace with Charles, so as to be fully in- 
vested with the title of Duke of Normandy. 

He was advanced in age at this time, and, 
after spending five years in settling the affairs 
of his realm, he resigned his dukedom into the 
hands of his son, that he might spend the re- 
mainder of his days in rest and peace. He 
died in 922, five years after his resignation. 

William I., second Duke of Normandy. 
From 917 to 942. 

William was Hollo's son. He began to 
reign, of course, five years before his father's 
death. He had a quiet and prosperous reign 
of about twenty-five years, but he was assassi- 
nated at last by a political onemy, in 942. 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 21 

Richard I., third Duke of Normandy. 
From 942 to 996. 

He was only ten years old when his father 
was assassinated. He became involved in long 
and arduous wars with the King of France, 
which compelled him to call in the aid of 
more Northmen from the Baltic. His new 
allies, in the end, gave him as much trouble 
as the old enemy, with whom they came to help 
William contend ; and he found it very hard 
to get them away. He wanted, at length, to 
make peace with the French king, and to have 
them leave his dominions; but they said, 
"That was not what they came for." 

Kichard had a beautiful daughter, named 
Emma, who afterward became a very impor- 
tant political personage, as will be seen more 
fully in a subsequent chapter. 

Kichard died in 996, after reigning fifty- 
four years. 

Richard II., fourth Duke of Normandy. 
From 990 to 1026 

Eichard II. was the son of Kichard I., and 
as his father had been engaged during his 
reign in contentions with his sovereign lord, 
the King of France, he, in his turn, was har- 
assed by long-continued struggles with his 
vassals, the barons and nobles of his own 
realm. He, too, sent for Northmen to come 
and assist him. During his reign there was 



22 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

a great contest in England between the Saxons 
and the Danes, and Ethelred, who was the 
Saxon claimant to the throne, came to Nor- 
mandy, and soon afterward married the Lady 
Emma, Kichard's sister. The particulars of 
this event, from which the most momentous 
consequences were afterward seen to flow, will 
be given in full in a future chapter. Eichard 
died in 1026. He left two sons, Eichard and 
Eobert. William the Conqueror was the son 
of the youngest, and was born two years before 
this Eichard IL died. 



RiCHAKD III., fifth Duke of Normandy. 
From 1026 to 1038. 



He was the oldest brother, and, of course, 
succeeded to the dukedom. His brother Eobert 
was then only a baron — his son William, 
afterward the Conqueror, being then about 
two years old. Eobert was very ambitious 
and aspiring, and eager to get possession of the 
dukedom himself. He adopted every possible 
means to circumvent and supplant his brother, 
and, as is supposed, shortened his days by the 
anxiety and vexation which he caused him; 
for Eichard died suddenly and mysteriously 
only two years after his accession. It was 
supposed by some, in fact, that he was 
poisoned, though there was never any satis- 
factory proof of this. 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 23 

RoBEKT, sixth Duke of Normandy. 
From 1028 to 1035. 

Robert, of course, succeeded his brother, 
and then, with the characteristic inconsistency 
of selfishness and ambition, he employed all 
the power of his realm in helping the King of 
France to subdue his younger brother, who 
was evincing the same spirit of seditiousness 
and insubmission that he had himself dis- 
played. His assistance was of great impor- 
tance to King Henry ; it, in fact, decided the 
contest in his favor; and thus one younger 
brother was put own in the commencement of 
his career of turbulence and rebellion, by 
another who had successfully accomplished a 
precisely similar course of crime. King 
Henry was very grateful for the service thus 
rendered, and was ready to do all in his power, 
at all times, to co-operate with Robert in the 
plans which the latter might form. Robert 
died in 1035, when William was about eleven 
years old. 

And here we close this brief summary of the 
history of the ducal line, as we have already 
passed the period of William's birth; and we 
return, accordingly, to give in detail some of 
the particulars of that event. 

Although the dukes of Normandy w^ere very 
powerful potentates, reigning, as thej^ did, 
almost in the character of independent sover- 
eigns, over one of the richest and most popu- 



24 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

lous territories of the globe, and though 
William the Conqueror was the son of one of 
them, his birth was nevertheless very ignoble. 
His mother was not the wife of Kobert his 
father, but a poor peasant girl, the daughter 
of an humble tanner of Falaise; and, indeed, 
William's father, Kobert, was not himself the 
duke at this time, but a simple baron, as his 
father was still living. It was not even certain 
that he ever would be the duke, as his older 
brother, who, of course, would come before 
him, was also then alive. Still, as the son 
and prospective heir to the reigning duke, his 
rank was very high. 

The circumstances of Robert's first acquaint- 
ance with the tanner's daughter were these. 
He was one day returning home to the castle 
from some expedition on which he had been 
sent by his father, when he saw a group of 
peasant girls standing on the margin of the 
brook, washing clothes. They were barefooted, 
and their dress was in other respects disar- 
ranged. There was one named Arlotte, ^ the 
daughter of a tanner of the town, whose coun- 
tenance and figure seem to have captivated the 
young baron. He gazed at her with admira- 
tion and pleasure as he rode along. Her com- 
plexion was fair, her eyes full and blue, and the 
expression of her countenance was frank, and 

*Her name is spelled variously, Arlette, Arlotte, Har- 
lotte, and in other wajB. 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 25 

open, and happy. She was talking joyously 
and merrily with her companions as Robert 
passed, little dreaming of the conspicuous place 
on the page of English history which she was 
to occupy, in all future time, in connection 
with the gay horseman who was riding by. 

The etiquette of royal and ducal palaces and 
castles in those days, as now, forbade that a 
noble of such lofty rank should marry a peasant 
girl. Eobert could not, therefore, have Arlotte 
for his wife ; but there was nothing to prevent 
his proposing her coming to the castle and liv- 
ing with him — that is, nothing but the law of 
God, and this was an authority to which dukes 
and barons in the Midde Ages were accustomed 
to pay very little regard. There was not even 
a public sentiment to forbid this, for a nobility 
like that of England and France in the Middle 
Ages stands so far above all the mass of society 
as to be scarcely amenable at all to the ordinary 
restrictions and obligations of social life. And 
even to the present day, in those countries 
where dukes exist, public sentiment seems to 
tolerate pretty generally whatever dukes see fit 
to do. 

Accordingly, as soon as Eobert had arrived 
at the castle, he sent a messenger from his 
retinue of attendants down to the village, to 
the father of Arlotte, proposing that she should 
come to the castle. The father seems to have 
had some hesitation in respect to his duty. 



26 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

It is said that he had a brother who was a 
monk, or rather hermit, who lived a life of 
reading, meditation, and prayer, in a solitary 
place not far from Falaise. Arlotte's father sent 
immediately to this religions recluse for his 
spiritual counsel. The monk replied that it 
was right to comply with the wishes of so 
great a man, whatever they might be. The tan- 
ner, thus relieved of all conscientious scruples 
on the subject by this high religious author- 
ity, and rejoicing in the opening tide of pros- 
perity and distinction which he foresaw for his 
family through the baron's love, robed and 
decorated his daughter, like a lamb for the 
sacrifice, and sent her to the castle. 

Arlotte had one of the rooms assigned her, 
which was built in the thickness of the wall. 
It communicated by a door with the other 
apartments and inclosures within the area, and 
there were narrow windows in the masonry 
without, through which she could look out over 
the broad expanse of beautiful fields and 
meadows which were smiling below. Robert 
seems to have loved her with sincere and strong 
affection, and to have done all in his power to 
make her happy. Her room, however, could 
not have been very sumptuously furnished, 
although she was the favorite in a ducal castle 
— at least so far as we can judge from the few 
glimpses we get of the interior through the 
ancient chroniclers' stories. One story is, 




Castle of Falaise and Fountain of Arlotte. 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 29 

that when William was born, his first exploit 
was to grasp a handful of straw, and to hold it 
so tenaciously in his little fist that the nurse 
could scarcely take it away. The nurse was 
greatly delighted with this infantile prowess ; 
she considered it an omen, and predicted that 
the babe would some day signalize himself by 
seizing and holding great possessions. The 
prediction would have been forgotten if 
William had not become the conqueror of Eng- 
land at a future day. As it was, it was re- 
membered and recorded; and it suggests to 
our imagination a very different picture of the 
conveniences and comforts of Arlotte's chamber 
from those presented to the eye in ducal 
palaces now, where carpets of velvet silence the 
tread on marble floors, and favorites repose 
under silken canopies on beds of down. 

The babe was named William, and he was a 
great favorite with his father. He was brought 
up at Falaise. Two years after his birth, 
Eobert's father died, and his oldest brother, 
Kichard III., succeeded to the ducal throne. 
In two years more, which years were spent in 
contention between the brothers, Richard also 
died, and then Eobert himself came into pos- 
session of the castle in his own name, reigning 
there over all the cities and domains of Nor- 
mandy. 

William was, of course, now about four years 
old. He was a bright and beautiful boy, and 



30 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

he grew more and more engaging everj' year. 
His father, instead of neglecting and disowning 
him, as it might have been supposed he would 
do, took a great deal of pride and pleasure in 
witnessing the gradual development of his 
powers and his increasing attractiveness, and 
he openly acknowledged him as his son. 

In fact William was a universal favorite 
about the castle. When he was five and six 
years old he was very fond of playing the sol- 
dier. He would marshal the other boys of the 
castle, his playmates, into a little troop, and 
train them around the castle inclosures, just as 
ardent and aspiring boys do with their com- 
rades now. He possessed a certain vivacity 
and spirit too, which gave him, even then, a 
great ascendency over his playfellows. He 
invented their plays; he led them in their mis- 
chief; he settled their disputes. In a word, 
he possessed a temperament and character 
which enabled him very easily and strongly to 
hold the position which his rank as son of the 
lord of the castle so naturally assigned him. 

A few years thus passed away, when, at 
length, Robert conceived the design of making 
a pilgrimage to the holy land. This was a 
plan, not of humble-minded piety, but of am- 
bition for fame. To make a pilgrimage to the 
Holy Land was a romantic achievement that 
covered whoever accomplished it with a sort of 
somber glory, which in the case of a prince or 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 31 

potentate mingled with and hallowed and ex- 
alted his military renown. Kobert determined 
on making the pilgrimage. It was a distant 
and dangerous journey. In fact, the diflScul- 
ties and dangers of the way were perhaps what 
chiefly imparted to the enterprise its romance, 
and gave it its charms. It was customary for 
kings and rulers, before setting out, to arrange 
all the affairs of their kingdoms, to provide a 
regency to govern during their absence, and to 
determine upon their successors, so as to pro- 
vide for the very probable contingency of their 
not living to return. 

As soon, therefore, as Eobert announced his 
plan of a pilgrimage, men's minds were imme- 
diately turned to the question of the succes- 
sion. Kobert had never been married, and he 
had consequently no son who was entitled to 
succeed him. He had two brothers, and also 
a cousin, and some other relatives, who had 
claims to the succession. These all began to 
maneuver among the chieftains and nobles, 
each endeavoring to prepare the way for having 
his own claims advanced, while Eobert himself 
was secretly determining that the little 
William should be his heir. He said nothing 
about this, however, but he took care to magnify 
the importance of his little son in every way, and 
to bring him as much as possible into public 
notice. William, on his part, possessed so 
much personal beauty, and so many juvenile 



32 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

accomplishments that he became a great favorite 
with all the nobles, and chieftains, and knights 
who saw him, sometimes at his father's castle, 
and sometimes away from home, in their own 
fortresses or towns, where his father took him, 
from time to time, in his train. 

At length, when affairs were ripe for their 
consummation, Duke Eoberfc called together a 
grand council of all the subordinate dukes, and 
earls, and barons of his realm, to make known 
to them the plan of his pilgrimage. They came 
together from a}l parts of Normandy, each in a 
splendid cavalcade, and attended by an armed 
retinue of retainers. When the assembly had 
been convened, and the preliminary forms and 
ceremonies had been disposed of, Robert an- 
nounced his grand design. 

As soon as he had concluded, one of the nobles, 
whose name and title was Guy, Count of Bur- 
gundy, rose and addressed the duke in reply. 

He was sorry, he said, to hear that the duke, 
his cousin, entertained such a plan. He 
feared for the safety of the realm when the 
chief ruler should be gone. All the estates of 
the realm, he said, the barons, the knights, the 
chieftains and soldiers of every degree, would 
be all without a head. 

"Not so," said Eobert; **I will leave you a 
master in my place." Then, pointing to the 
beautiful boy by his side, he added, "I have 
a little fellow here, who, though he is little 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 33 

now, I acknowledge, will grow bigger by and by 
with God's grace, and I have great hopes that 
he will become a brave and gallant man. I 
present him to you, and from this time forth 
I give him seizin* of the Duchy of Normandy 
as my known and acknowledged heir. And I 
appoint Alan, Duke of Brittany, governor of 
Normandy in my name until I shall return, and 
in case I shall not return in the name of Will- 
iam, my son, until he shall become of manly 
age. 

The assembly was taken wholly by surprise 
at this announcement. Alan, Duke of Brittany, 
who was one of the chief claimants to the suc- 
cession, was pleased with the honor conferred 
upon him in making him at once the governor 
of the realm, and was inclined to prefer the 
present certainty of governing at once in the 
name of others, to the remote contingency of 
reigning in his own. The other claimants to 
the inheritance were confounded by the sud- 
denness of the emergency, and knew not what 
to say or do. The rest of the assembly were 
pleased with the romance of having the beau- 
tiful boy for their feudal sovereign. The duke 
saw at once that everything was favorable to the 
accomplishment of his design. He took the 
lad in his arms, kissed him, and held him out 

* Seizin, an ancient feudal term denoting the inducting 
of a party to a legal possession of his right. 



34 "WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

in view of the assembly. William gazed 
around upon the panoplied warriors before 
him with a bright and beaming eye. They 
knelt down as by a common accord to do him 
homage, and then took the oath of perpetual 
allegiance and fidelity to his cause. 

Robert thought, however, that it would not 
be quite prudent to leave his son himself in the 
custody of these his rivals, so he took him 
with him to Paris when he set out upon his 
pilgrimage, with a view of establishing him 
there, in the court of Henry, the French king, 
while he should himself be gone. Young 
William was presented to the French king, on 
a day set apart for the ceremony, with great 
pomp and parade. The king held a special 
court to receive him. He seated himself on 
his throne in a grand apartment of his palace, 
and was surrounded by his nobles and officers 
of state, all magnificently dressed for the occa- 
sion. At the proper time, Duke Eobert came 
in, dressed in his pilgrim's garb, and leading 
young William by the hand. His attendant 
pilgrim knights accompanied him. Kobert 
led the boy to the feet of their common 
sovereign, and, kneeling there, ordered Will- 
iam to kneel too, to do homage to the king. 
King Henry received him very graciously. 
He embraced him, and promised to receive 
him into his court, and to take the best possible 
care of him while his father was away. The 



BIRTH OF WILLIAM. 



35 



courtiers were very much struck witli the beauty 
and noble bearing of the boy. His counte- 
nance beamed with an animated, but yet very 
serious expression, as he was somewhat awed 
by the splendor of the scene around him. He 
was himself then nine years old. 




A Norman Ship. 




CHAPTEK III 



THE ACCESSION. 



After spending a little time at Paris, Eobert 
took leave of the king, and of William his sod, 
and went forth, with a ^train of attendant 
knights, on his pilgrimage. He had a great 
variety of adventures, vi^tich cannot be related 
here, as it is the history of the son, and not of 
the father, which is the subject of this narra- 
tive. Though he traveled strictly as a pilgrim, 
it was still with great pomp and parade. After 
visiting Eome, and accomplishing various 
services and duties connected with his pilgrim- 
age there, he laid aside his pilgrim's garb, 
and assuming his proper rank as a great Nor- 
man chieftain, he went to Constantinople, 
where he made a great display of his wealth 
and magnificence. At the time of the grand 
procession, for example, by which he entered 
the city of Constantinople, he rode a mule, 
which, besides being gorgeously caparisoned, 
had shoes of gold instead of iron ; and these 
shoes were purposely attached so slightly to 
the hoofs, that they were shaken off as the 
animal walked along, to be picked up by the 

36 



THE ACCESSION. B7 

populace. This was to impress them with 
grand ideas of the rider's wealth and splendor. 
After leaving Constantinople, Robert resumed 
his pilgrim's garb, and went on toward the 
Holy Land. 

The journey, however, did not pass without 
the usual vicissitudes of so long an absence 
and so distant a pilgrimage. At one time 
Eobert was sick, and, after lingering for some 
time in a fever, he so far recovered his strength 
as to be borne on a litter by the strength of 
other men, though he could not advance him- 
self, either on horseback or on foot ; and as for 
traveling carriages, there had been no such 
invention in those days. They made arrange- 
ments, therefore, for carrying the duke on a 
litter. There were sixteen Moorish slaves 
employed to serve as his bearers. This com- 
pany was divided into sets, four in each, the 
several sets taking the burden in rotation. 
Eobert and his attendant knights looked down 
with great contempt on these black pagan 
slaves. One day the cavalcade was met by a 
Norman who was returning home to Normandy 
after having accomplished his pilgrimage. He 
asked Duke Eobert if he had any message to 
send to his friends at home. "Yes," said he; 
"tell them you saw me here, on my way to 
Paradise, carried by sixteen demons." 

Eobert reached Jerusalem, and set out on his 
return ; and soon after rumors came back to 



38 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Paris that he had died on the way home. The 
accounts of the manner of his death were con- 
tradictory and uncertain ; but the fact was soon 
made sure, and the news produced everywhere 
a great sensation. It soon appeared that the 
brothers and cousins of Kobert, who had 
claimed the right to succeed him in preference 
to his son William, had only suspended their 
claims — they had not abandoned them. They 
began to gather their forces, each in his own 
separate domain, and to prepare to take the 
field, if necessary, in vindication of what they 
considered their rights to the inheritance. In 
a word, their oaths of fealty to William were 
all forgotten, and each claimant was intent only 
on getting possession himself of the ducal 
crown. 

In the meantime, William himself was at 
Paris, and only eleven years of age. He had 
been receiving a careful education there, and 
was a very prepossessing and accomplished 
young prince. Still, he was yet but a mere 
boy. He had been under the €are of a mili- 
tary tutor, whose name was Theroulde. The- 
roulde was a veteran soldier, who had long 
been in the employ of the King of France. 
He took great interest in his young pupil's 
progress. He taught him to ride and to prac- 
tice all the evolutions of horsemanship which 
were required by the tactics of those days. 
He trained him, too, in the use of arms, the 



THE ACCESSION. 39 

bow and arrow, the javelin, the sword, the 
spear, and accustomed him to wear, and to ex- 
ercise in, the armor of steel with which war- 
riors were used, in those days, to load them- 
selves in going into battle. Young princes 
like William had suits of this armor made for 
them, of small size, which they were accus- 
tomed to wear in private in their military exer- 
cises and trainings, and to appear in, publicly, 
on great occasions of state. These dresses of 
iron were of course very heavy and uncomfort- 
able, but the young princes and dukes were, 
nevertheless, very proud and happy to wear 

them. 

While William was thus engaged in pursu- 
ing his military education in Paris, several 
competitors for his dukedom immediately 
appeared in Normandy and took the field. 
The strongest and most prominent among them 
was the Earl of Arques. His name was Will- 
iam, too, but, to distinguish him from the 
young duke we shall call him Arques. He 
was a brother of Kobert, and maintained that, 
as Eobert left no lawful heir, he was indisput- 
ably entitled to succeed him. Arques assem- 
bled his forces and prepared to take posses- 
sion of the country. 

It will be recollected that Kobert, when he 
left Normandy in setting out on his pilgrim- 
age, had appointed a nobleman named Alan to 
act as regent, or governor of the country, until 



40 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

he should return ; or, in case he should never 
return, until William should become of age. 
Alan had a council of officers, called the coun- 
cil of regency, with whose aid he managed the 
administration of the government. This coun- 
cil, with Alan at their head, proclaimed young 
"William duke, and immediately began to act in 
his name. When they found that the Earl of 
Arques was preparing to-seize the government, 
they began to assemble their forces also, and 
thus both sides prepared for war. y 

Before they actually commenced hostilities, 
however, the pilgrim knights who had accom- 
panied Eobert on his pilgrimage, and who had 
been journeying home slowly by themselves 
ever since their leader's death, arrived in Nor- 
mandy. These were chieftains and nobles of 
high rank and influence, and each of the con- 
tending parties were eager to have them join 
their side. Besides the actual addition of 
force which these men could bring to the cause 
they should espouse, the moral support they 
would give to it was a very important consider- 
ation. Their having been on this long and 
dangerous pilgrimage invested them with a 
sort of romantic and religious interest in the 
minds of all the people, who looked up to 
them, in consequence of it, with a sort of ven- 
eration and awe ; and then, as they had been 
selected by Eobert to accompany him on his 
pilgrimage, and had gone on the long and dan- 



THE ACCESSION. 41 

gerous journey with him, continuing to attend 
upon him until he died, they were naturally 
regarded as his most faithful and confidential 
friends. For these and similar reasons, it was 
obvious that the cause which they should 
espouse in the approaching contest would gain 
a large accession of moral power by their adhe- 
sion. 

As soon as they arrived in Normandy, re- 
jecting all proposals from other quarters, thev 
joined young William's cause with the utmost 
promptitude and decision. Alan received them 
at once into his councils. An assembly was 
convened, and the question was discussed 
whether William should be sent for to come to 
Normandy. Some argued that he was yet a 
mere boy, incapable of rendering them any 
real service in the impending contest, while he 
would be exposed, more perhaps than they 
themselves, to be taken captive or slain. They 
thought it best, therefore, that he should re- 
main, for the present, in Paris, under the pro- 
tection of the French king. 

Others, on the other hand, contended that 
the influence of William's presence, boy as he 
was, would animate and inspire all his fol- 
lowers, and awaken everywhere, throughout the 
country, a warm interest in his cause; that his 
very tenderness and helplessness would appeal 
strongly to every generous heart, and that his 
youthful accomplishments and personal charms 
4 



42 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 

would enlist thousands in his favor, who would 
forget, and perhaps abandon him, if he kept 
away. Besides, it was by no means certain 
that he was so safe as some might suppose in 
King Henry's custody and power. King 
Henry might himself lay claims to the vacant 
duchy, with a view of bestowing it upon some 
favorite of his own, in which case he might 
confine young William in one of his castles, in 
an honorable, but still rigid and hopeless cap- 
tivity, or treacherously destroy his life by the 
secret administration of poison. 

These latter counsels prevailed. Alan and 
the nobles who were with him sent an embass- 
age to the court of King Henry to bring Wil- 
liam home. Henry made objections and 
difficulties. This alarmed the nobles. They 
feared that it would prove true that Henry 
himself had designs on Normandy. They sent 
a new embassage, with demands more urgent 
than before. Finally, after some time spent 
in negotiations and delays, King Henry con- 
cluded to yield, and William set out on his 
return. He was now about twelve or thirteen 
years old. His military tutor, Theroulde, ac- 
companied him, and he was attended likewise 
by the embassadors whom Alan had sent for 
him, and by a strong escort for his protection 
by the way. He arrived in safety at Alan's 
headquarters. 

William's presence in "Normandy had the 



THE ACCESSION. 43 

effect which had been anticipated from it. It 
awakened everywhere a great deal of enthusi- 
asm in his favor. The soldiers were pleased 
to see how handsome their young commander 
was in form, and how finely he could ride. 
He was, in fact, a very superior equestrian for 
one so young. He was more fond, even, than 
other boys of horses; and as, of course, the 
most graceful and the fleetest horses which 
could be found were provided for him, and as 
Theroulde had given him the best and most 
complete instruction, he made a fine display as 
he rode swiftly through the camp, followed by 
veteran nobles, splendidly dressed and mounted, 
and happy to be in his train, while his own 
countenance beamed with a radiance in which 
native intelligence and beauty were heightened 
by the animation and excitement of pride and 
.pleasure. In respect to the command of the 
army, of course the real power remained in 
Alan's hands, but everything was done in 
William's name; and in respect to all external 
marks and symbols of sovereignty, the beauti- 
ful boy seemed to possess the supreme com- 
mand ; and as the sentiment of loyalty is 
always the strongest when the object which 
calls for the exercise of it is most helpless or 
frail, Alan found his power much increased 
when he had this beautiful boy to exhibit 
as the true and rightful heir, in whose name 
and for whose benefit all his power was held. 



44 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Still, however, the country was very far from 
beconiiug settled. The Earl of Arques kept 
the field, and other claimants, too, strength- 
ened themselves in their various castles and 
towns, as if preparing to" resist. In those 
days, every separate district of the country 
was almost a separate realm, governed by its 
own baron, who lived, with his retainers, 
within his own castle walls, and ruled the land 
around him with a rod of iron. These 
barons were engaged in perpetual quarrels 
among themselves, each plundering the do- 
minions of the rest, or making hostile incursions 
into the territories of a neighbor to revenge 
some real or imaginary wrong. This turbu- 
lence and disorder prevailed everywhere 
throughout Normandy at the time of William's 
return. In the general confusion, William's 
government scarcely knew who were his friends 
or his enemies. At one time, when a deputa- 
tion was sent to some of the barons in Will- 
iam's name, summoning them to come with 
their forces and join his standard, as they were 
in duty bound to do, they felt independent 
enough to send back word to him that they had 
"too much to do in settling their own quarrels 
to be able to pay any attention to his. 

In the course of a year or two, moreover, 
and while his own realm continued in this 
unsettled and distracted state, William became 
involved in what was almost a quarrel with 



THE ACCESSION. 46 

King Henry himself. When he was fifteen 
years old, which was two or three years after 
his return from Paris to Normandy, Henry 
sent directions to William to come to a certain 
town, called Evreux, situated about halfway 
between Falaise and Paris, and just within the 
conlines of Normandy,* to do homage to him 
there for his duchy. There was some doubt 
among William's counselors whether it would 
be most prudent to obey or disobey this com- 
mand. They finally concluded that it was best 
to obey. Grand preparations were accordingly 
made for the expedition ; and, when all was 
ready, the young duke was conducted in great 
state, and with much pomp and parade, to meet 
his sovereign. 

The interview btween William and his sover- 
eign, and the ceremonies connected with it, 
lasted some days. In the course of this time, 
William remained at Evreux, and was, in some 
sense, of course, in Henry's power. William, 
having been so long in Henry's court as a mere 
boy, accustomed all the time to look up to and 
obey Henry as a father, regarded him some- 
what in that light now, and approached him 
with great deference and respect. Henry re- 
ceived him in a somewhat haughty and impe- 
rious manner, as if he considered him still 
under the same subjection as heretofore. 

* See map, page 161. 



46 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 

William liad a fortress or castle on the fron- 
tiers of his dukedom, toward Henry's domin- 
ions. The name of the castle was Tellieres, 
and the governor of it was a faithful old sol- 
dier named De Crespin. William's father, 
Robert, had intrusted De Crespin with the 
command of the castle, and given him a garri- 
son to defend it. Henry now began to make 
complaint to William in respect to this castle. 
The garrison, he said, wer*^ continually making 
incursions into his dominions. William replied 
that he was very sorry that there was cause 
for such a complaint. He would inquire into 
it, and if the fact were really so, he would have 
the evil immediately corrected. Henry replied 
that that was not sufficient. "You must deliver 
up the castle to me," he said, "to be de- 
stroyed." William was indignant at such a 
demand ; but he was so accustomed to obey 
implicitly whatever King Henry might require 
of him, that he sent the order to have the castle 
surrendered. 

When, however, the order came to De Cres- 
pin, the governor of the castle, he refused to 
obey it. The fortress, he said, had been com- 
mitted to his charge by Eobert, duke of Nor- 
mandy, and he should not give it up to the 
possession of any foreign power. When this 
answer was reported to William and his coun- 
selors, it made them still more indignant than 
before at the domineering tyranny of the com- 



THE ACCESSION. 4? 

mand, and more disposed than ever to refuse 
obedience to it. Still William was in a great 
measure in the monarch's power. On cool 
reflection, they perceived that resistance would 
then be vain. New and more authoritative 
orders were accordingly issued for the sur- 
render of the castle. De Crespin now obeyed. 
He gave up the keys and withdrew with his 
garrison. William was then allowed to leave 
Evreux and return home, and soon afterward 
the castle was razed to the ground. 

This affair produced, of course, a great deal 
of animosity and irritation between the govern- 
ments of France and Normandy ; and where such 
a state of feeling exists between two powers 
separated only by an imaginary line running 
through a populous and fertile country, aggres- 
sions from one side and from the other are sure 
to follow. Thest are soon succeeded by acts 
of retaliation and revenge, leading, in the end, 
to an open and general war. It was so now. 
Henry marched his armies into Normandy, 
seized towns, destroyed castles, and, where he 
was resisted by the people, he laid waste the 
country with fire and sword. He finally laid 
siege to the very castle of Falaise. 

William and his government were for a time 
nearly overwhelmed with the tide of disaster 
and calamity. The tide turned, however, at 
length, and the fortune of war inclined in their 
favor. William rescued the town and castle 



48 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

of Falaise ; it was in a very remarkable man- 
ner, too, that this exploit was accomplished. 
The fortress was closely invested with Henry's 
forces, and was on the very eve of being sur- 
rendered. The story is that Henry had offered 
bribes to the governor of the castle to give it 
up to him, and that the governor had agreed to 
receive them and to betray his trust. While 
he was preparing to do so, William arrived at 
the head of a resolute and determined band of 
Normans. They came with so sudden an onset 
upon the army of besiegers as to break up their 
camp and force them to abandon the siege. 
The people of the town and the garrison of the 
castle were extremely rejoiced to be thus res- 
cued, and when they came to learn through 
whose instrumentality they had been saved, 
and saw the beautiful horseman whom they 
remembered as a gay and happy child playing 
about the precincts of the castle, they were 
perfectly intoxicated with delight. They filled 
the air with the wildest acclamations, and wel- 
comed William back to the home of his child- 
hood with manifestations of the most extrava- 
gant joy. As to the traitorous governor, he 
was dealt with very leniently. Perhaps the 
general feeling of joy awakened emotions of 
leniency and forgiveness in William's mind — 
or perhaps the proof against the betrayer was 
incomplete. They did not, therefore, take his 
life, which would have been justly forfeited, 



THE ACCESSION. 49 

according to the military ideas of the times, if 
he had been really guilty. They deprived him 
of his command, confiscated his property, and 
let him go free. 

After this, William's forces continued for 
some time to make head successfully against 
those of the King of France ; but then, on the 
other hand, the danger from his uncle, the Earl 
of Arques, increased. The earl took advantage 
of the difficulty and danger in which William 
WHS involved in his contests with King Henry, 
and began to organize his forces again. He 
fortified himself in his castle at Arques,* and 
was collecting a large force there. Arques was 
in the northeastern part of Normandy, near the 
sea, where the ruins of the ancient castle still 
remain. The earl built an almost impregnable 
tower for himself on the summit of the rock on 
which the castle stood, in a situation so inac- 
cessible that he thought he could retreat to it 
in any emergency, with a few chosen followers, 
and bid defiance to any assault. In and around 
this castle the earl had got quite a large army 
together. William advanced with his forces, 
and, encamping around them, shut them in. 
King Henry, who was then in a distant part of 
Normandy, began to put his army in motion 
to come to the rescue of Arques. 

Things being in this state, William left a 

* See map, page 161. 



60 WILLIAM I'HE CONQUEROR. 

strong body of men to continue the investment 
and siege of Arques, and went off himself, at 
the head of the remainder of his force, to inter- 
cept Henry on his advance. The result was a 
battle and a victory, gained under circumstances 
so extraordinary, that William, young as he 
was, acquired by his exploits a brilliant and 
universal renown. 

It seems that Henry, in his progress to 
Arques, had to pass through a long and gloomy 
valley, which was bounded on either side by 
precipitous and forest-covered hills. Through 
this dangerous defile the long train of Henry's 
army was advancing, arranged and marshaled 
in such an order as seemed to afford the 
greatest hope of security in case of an attack. 
First came the vanguard, a strong escort, 
formed of heavy bodies of soldiery, armed 
with battle-axes and pikes, and other similar 
weapons, the most efiicient then known. Im- 
mediately after this vanguard came a long train 
of baggage, the tents, the provisions, the 
stores, and all the munitions of war. The 
baggage was followed by a great company of 
servants — the cooks, the carters, the laborers, 
the camp followers of every description — a 
throng of noncombatants, useless, of course, 
in battle, and a burden on a march, and yet the 
inseparable and indispensable attendant of an 
army, whether at rest or in motion. After 
this throng came the main body of the army, 





William, /ace p. SO 

Norman Attack on a French Castle. 



THE ACCESSION. 51 

with the king, escorted by his guard of honor, 
at the head of it. An active and efficient corps 
of lancers and men-at-arms brought up the rear. 

William conceived the design of drawing this 
cumbrous and unmanageable body into an am- 
buscade. He selected, accordingly, the nar- 
rowest and most dangerous part of the defile 
for the purpose, and stationed vast numbers of 
Norman soldiers, armed with javelins and 
arrows, upon the slopes of the hills on either 
side, concealing them all carefully among the 
thickets and rocks. He then marshaled the 
remainder of his forces in the valley, and sent 
them up the valley to meet Henry as he was 
descending. This body of troops, which was 
to advance openly to meet the king, as if they 
constituted the whole of William's force, were 
to fight a pretended battle with the vanguard, 
and then to retreat, in hopes to draw the whole 
train after them in a pursuit so eager as to 
throw them into confusion ; and then, when 
the column, thus disarranged, should reach the 
place of ambuscade, the Normans were to come 
down upon them suddenly from their hiding- 
places, and complete their discomfiture. 

The plan was well laid, and wisely and 
bravely executed; and it was most trium- 
phantly successfurin its result. The vanguard 
of Henry's army were deceived by the pre- 
tended flight of the Norman detachment. They 
supposed, too, that it constituted the whole 



52 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

body of their enemies. They pressed forward, 
therefore, with great exultation and eagerness 
to pursue them. News of the attack, and of 
the apparent repulse with which the French 
soldiers had met it, passed rapidly along the 
valley, producing everywhere the wildest ex- 
citement, and an eager desire to press forward 
to the scene of conflict. The whole valley was 
filled with shouts and outcries ; baggage was 
abandoned, that those who had charge of it 
might hurry on ; men ran to and fro for tid- 
ings, or ascended eminences to try to see. 
Horsemen drove at full speed from front to 
rear, and from rear on to the front again; 
orders and counter orders were given, which 
nobody would understand or attend to in the 
general confusion and din. In fact, the 
universal attention seemed absorbed in one gen- 
eral and eager desire to press forward with 
headlong impetuosity to the scene of victory 
and pursuit which they supposed was enacting 
in the van. 

The army pressed on in this confused and 
excited manner until they reached the place of 
ambuscade. They went on, too, through this 
narrow passage, as heedlessly as ever; and, 
when the densest and most powerful jiortion of 
the column was crowding through, they v»'ere 
suddenly thunderstruck by the issuing of a 
thousand weapons from the heights and thickets 
above them on either hand — a dreadful shower 



THE ACCESSION. 53 

of arrows, javelins and spears, which struck 
down hundreds in a moment, and overwhelmed 
the rest with astonishment and terror. As soon 
as this first discharge had been effected, the 
concealed enemy came pouring down the sides 
of the mountain, springing out from a thou- 
sand hiding-places, as if suddenly brought into 
being by some magic power. The discomfi- 
ture of Henry's forces was complete and ir- 
remediable. The men fled everywhere in utter 
dismay, trampling upon and destroying one 
another, as they crowded back in terrified 
throngs to find some place of safety up the 
valley. There, after a day or two, Henry got 
together the scattered remains of his army, 
and established something like a camp. 

It is a curious illustration of the feudal feel- 
ings of those times in respect to the gradation 
of ranks, or else of the extraordinary modesty 
and good sense of William's character, that 
he assumed no airs of superiority over his 
sovereign, and showed no signs of extravagant 
elation after this battle. He sent a respectful 
embassage to Henry, recognizing his owe 
acknowledged subjection to Henry as his sover- 
eign, and imploring his protection! He looked 
confidently to him, he said, for aid and sup- 
port against his rebellious subjects. 

Though he thus professed, however, to rely 
on Henry, he really trusted most, it seems, to 
his own right arm ; for, as soon as this battle 



64 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



was fairly over, and while the whole country 
was excited with the astonishing brilliancy of 
the exploit performed by so young a man, 
William mounted his liorse, and calling upon 
those to follow him who wished to do so, he 
rode at full speed, at the head of a small caval- 
cade, to the castle at Arques. His sudden ap- 
pearance here, with the news of the victory, 
inspirited the besiegers to such a degree that 
the castle was soon taken. He allowed the rebel 
earl to escape, and thus, perhaps, all the more 
effectually put an end to the rebellion. He 
was now in peaceable possession of his realm. 
He went in triumph to Falaise, where he 
was solemnly crowned with great ceremony and 
parade, and all Normandy M'as filled with con- 
gratulations and rejoicings. 





CHAPTEE IV. 

William's reign in normandy. 

From the time of William's obtaining quiet 
possession of his realm to his invasion of Eng- 
land, a long period intervened. There was a 
lapse of more than twenty years. During this 
long interval William governed his duchy, sup- 
pressed insurrections, built castles and towns, 
carried on wars, regulated civil institutions, 
and, in fact, exercised, in a very energetic and 
successful manner, all the functions of govern- 
ment — his life being diversified all the time by 
the usual incidents which mark the career of 
a great military ruler of an independent realm 
in the Middle Ages. We will give in this 
chapter a description of some of these inci- 
dents. 

On one occasion a conspiracy was formed to 
take his life by secret assassination. A great 
chieftain, named Guy of Burgundy, William's 
uncle, was the leader of it, and a half-witted 
man, named Galet, who occupied the place of 
jester or fool in William's court, was the means 
of discovering and exposing it. These /esters, 
of whom there was always one or more in the 

5 55 



56 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

retinue of every great prince in those days, 
were either very eccentric, or very foolish, or 
half-insane men, who were dressed fantastically, 
in gaudy colors and with cap and bells, and 
were kept to make amusement for the court. 
The name of William's jester was Galet. 

Guy of Burgundy and his fellow-conspira- 
tors occupied certain gloomy castles, built in 
remote and lonely situations, on the confines 
of Normandy. Here they were accustomed to 
assemble for the purpose of concocting their 
plans, and gathering their men and their re- 
sources — doing everything in the most cunning 
and secret manner. Before their scheme was 
fully ripe for execution, it happened that 
William made a hunting excursion into the 
neighborhood of their territory with a small 
band of followers — such as would be naturally 
got together on such a party of pleasure. 
Galet, the fool, was among them. 

As soon as Guy and his fellow-conspirators 
learned that William was so near, they deter- 
mined to precipitate the execution of their 
plan, and waylay and assassinate him on his 
return. 

They accordingly left their secret and lonely 
rendezvous among the mountains one by one, in 
order to avoid attracting observation, and went 
to a town called Bayeux, through which they 
supposed that William would have to pass on 
his return. Here they held secret consulta- 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 5? 

tions, and formed their final plana. They sent 
out a part of their number, in small bands, 
into the region of country which William 
would have to cross, to occupy the various 
roads and passes, and thus to cut off all possi- 
bility of his escape. They made all these ar- 
rangements in the most secret and cautious 
manner, and began to think that they were 
sure of their prey. 

It happened, however, that some of Will- 
iam's attendants, with Galet the fool among 
them, had preceded William on his return, and 
had reached Bayeux* at the time when the 
conspirators arrived there. The townspeople 
did not observe the coming of the conspirators 
particularly, as many horsemen and soldiers 
were coming and going at that time, and they 
had no means of distinguishing the duke's 
friends from his enemies; but Galet, as he 
sauntered about the town, noticed that there 
were many soldiers and knights to be seen who 
were not of his master's party. This attracted 
his attention ; he began to watch the motions 
of these strangers, and to listen, without seem- 
ing to listen, in order to catch the words they 
spoke to each other as they talked in groups 
or passed one another in the streets. He was 
soon satisfied that some mischief was intended. 
He immediately threw aside his cap and bells, 

*See map, page 161. 



58 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

and his fantastic dress, and, taking a staflf in 
his haiul, he set off on foot, to go hack as fast 
as possible in search of the duke, and give him 
the ahiriu. He found the duke at a village 
called Valonges. Ho arrived there at night. 
Ho pressed forward hastily into his master's 
chamber, half forcing his wax through the at- 
tendants, who, accustomed to the liberties 
which such a personage as he was accustomed 
to take on all occasions, made only a feeble 
resistance to his wishes. Ho found the duke 
asleep, and he called upon him with a very 
earnest voice to awake and arise immediately, 
for his life was in danger. 

William was at first inclined to disbelieve 
the story which Galet told him, and to think 
that there was no cause to fear. He was, 
however, soon convinced that Galet was right, 
and that there was reasons for alarm. He 
arose and dressed himself hastily ; and, inas- 
much as a monarch, in the first moments of the 
discovery of a treasonable plot, knows not 
whom to trust, William wisely concluded not 
to trust anybody. He went himself to the 
stables, saddled his horse with his own hand, 
mounted him, and rode away. He had a very 
narrow escape; for, at the same time, while 
Galet was hastening to Valonges to give his 
master warning of his danger, the conspirators 
had been advancing to the same place, and had 
completely surrounded it; and they were on 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 59 

the eve of making an attack upon William's 
quartern at the very hour when he set out upon 
his flight. William had accordingly proceeded 
only a little way on his route before he heard 
the footsteps of galloping horses, and the 
clanking of arms, on the road behind him. It 
was a troop of the conspirators coming, who, 
finding that William had fled, had set off im- 
mediately in pursuit. William rode hastily 
into a wood, and let them go by. 

He remained for some time in his hiding- 
place, and then cautiously emerged from it to 
continue his way. He did not dare to keep 
the public road, although it was night, but 
took a wild and circuitous route, in lanes and 
by-paths, which conducted him, at length, to 
the vicinity of the sea. Here, about day- 
break, he was passing a mansion, supposing 
that no one would observe him at so early an 
hour, when, suddenly, he perceived a man sit- 
ting at the gate, armed and equipped, and in 
an attitude of waiting. He was waiting for 
his horse. He was a nobleman named Hubert. 
He recognized William immediately as the 
duke, and accosted him in a tone of astonish- 
ment, saying: "Why, my lord duke, is it pos- 
sible that this is you?" He was amazed to 
see the ruler of the realm out at such an hour, 
in such a condition, alone, exhausted, his dress 
all in disorder from the haste with which he 
had put it on, and his steed breathless and 



60 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

covered with dust, and ready, apparently', to 
drop down with fatigue and exhaustion. 

William, finding that he was recognized, re- 
lated his story. It appeared, in the end, that 
Hubert held his own castle and village as a 
tenant of one of the principal conspirators, and 
was bound, according to the feudal ideas of 
the time, to espouse his landlord's cause. He 
told William, however, that he had nothing to 
fear. "I will defend your life," said he, "as 
if it were my own." So saying, he called his 
three sons, who were all athletic and coura- 
geous young men, and commanded them to 
mount their horses and get ready for a march. 
He took William into his castle, and gave him 
the food and refreshment that he needed. 
Then he brought him again into the courtyard 
of the house, where William found the three 
young horsemen mounted and ready, and a 
strong and fleet steed prepared for himself. 
He mounted. Hubert commanded his sons to 
conduct the prince with all dispatch to Falaise, 
without traveling at all upon the highway or 
entering a town. They took, accordingly, a 
straight course across the country — which was 
probably then, as now, nearly destitute of in- 
closures — and conducted William safely to his 
castle at Falaise. 

In the course of the morning, William's 
pursuers came to Hubert's castle, and asked if 
the duke had been seen going by. Hubert 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 61 

replied in the affirmative, and he mounted his 
steed with great readiness to go and show them 
the road which the fugitive had taken. He 
urged them to ride hard, in hopes of soon over- 
taking the object of their pursuit. They 
drove on, accordingly, with great impetuosity 
and ardor, under Hubert's guidance; but, as he 
had purposely taken a wrong road, he was only 
leading them farther and farther astray. 
Finally they gave up the chase, and Hubert re- 
turned with the disappointed pursuers to his 
fortress, William having in the meantime 
arrived safely at Falaise. 

The conspirators now found that it was use- 
less any longer to attempt to conceal their 
plans. In fact, they were already all exposed, 
and they knew that William would immediately 
summon his troops and come out to seize them. 
They must, therefore, either fly from the 
country or attempt an open rebellion. They 
decided on the latter — the result was a civil 
war. In the end, William was victorious. He 
took a large number of the rebels prisoners, 
aud he adopted the following very singular 
plan for inflicting a suitable punishment upon 
them, and at the same time erecting a per- 
manent monument of his victory. He laid out 
a public road across the country, on the line 
over which he had been conducted by the sons 
of Hubert, and compelled the rebels to make 
it. A great part of this country was low and 



62 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

marshy, and had been for this reason avoided 
by the public road, which took a circuitous 
course around it. The rebel prisoners were 
nov;, however, set at work to raise a terrace or 
embankment, on a line surveyed by William's 
engineers, which followed almost exactly the 
course of his retreat. The high road was then 
laid out upon this terrace, and it became im- 
mediately a public thoroughfare of great im- 
portance. It continued for several centuries 
one of the most frequented highways in the 
realm, and was known by the name of the 
Baised Koad — Terre levee — throughout the 
kingdom. In fact, the remains of it, appear- 
ing like the ruins of an ancient railroad em- 
bankment, exist to the present day. 

In the course of the war with these rebels a 
curious incident occurred at one of the battles, 
or, rather, is said to have occurred, by the 
historians who tell the story, which, if true, 
illustrates very strikingly the romantic and 
chivalrous ideas of the times. Just as the 
battle was commencing, William perceived a 
strong and finely-equipped body of horsemen 
preparing to charge upon the very spot where 
he himself, surrounded by his oflScers, was 
standing. Now the armor worn by knights in 
battle in those times covered and concealed the 
figure and the face so fully that it would have 
been impossible even for acquaintances and 
friends to recognize each other, were it not 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 63 

that the knights were all accustomed to wear 
certain devices upon sonae part of their armor 
— painted, for instance, upon their shields, or 
embroidered on little banners which they bore 
— by means of which they might be- known. 
These devices became at length hereditary in 
the great families — sous being proud to wear, 
themselves, the emblems to which the deeds of 
their fathers had imparted a trace of glory and 
renown. The devices of different chieftains 
were combined, sometimes, in cases of inter- 
marriage, or were modified in various ways ; 
and with these minor changes they would de- 
scend from generation to generation, as the 
family coat of arms. And this was the origin 
of heraldry. 

Now the body of horsemen that were advanc- 
ing to the charge, as above described, had each 
of them his device upon a little flag or banner 
attached to their lances. As they were ad- 
vancing William scrutinized them closely, and 
presently recognized in their leader a man who 
had formerly been upon his side. His name 
was Eollo de Tesson. He was one of those 
who had sworn fealty to him at the time when 
his father Robert presented him to the council, 
when setting out upon his pilgrimage. 
William accordingly exclaimed, with a loud 
voice, "Why, these are my friends!" The 
officers and the soldiers of the body-guard 
who were with him, taking up the cry, shouted 



64 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 

'* Friends! friends!'''' Eollo de Tesson and 
the other knights, who were slowly coming up, 
preparing to charge upon William's party, 
surprised at being thus accosted, paused in 
their advance, and finally halted. Eollo said 
to the other knights, who gathered around him, 
*'I luas his friend. I gave my oath to his 
father that I would stand by him and defend 
him with my life ; and now I have this morn- 
ing sworn to the Count of Cotentin" — the 
Count of Cotentin was the leader of the rebel- 
lion — "that I would seek out William on the 
battlefield, and be the first to give him a blow. 
I know not what to do." 

"Keep both oaths," replied one of his com- 
panions. "Go and strike him a gentle blow, 
and then defend him with your life." The 
whole troop seconded this proposal by acclama- 
tion. Rollo advanced, followed by the other 
knights, with geatures and shouts denoting 
that they were friends. He rode up to Will- 
iam, told him that he had that morning sworn 
to strike him, and then dealt him a pretended 
blow upon his shoulder; but as both the 
shoulder and the hand which struck it were 
armed with steel, the clanking sound was all 
the effect that was produced. Rollo and his 
troop — their sworn obligation to the Count of 
Cotentin being thus fulfilled — turned now into 
the ranks of William 's soldiery, and fought 
valiantly all day upon his side. 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. Go 

Although William was generally victorious 
in the battles that he fought, and succeededin 
putting down one rebellion after another with 
promptness and decision, still, new rebellions 
and new wars were constantly breaking out, 
which kept his dominions in a continual state 
of commotion. In fact," the chieftains, the 
nobles, and the knights, constituting the only 
classes of society that exercised any influence, 
or were regarded with any respect in those 
days, were never contented except when 
actively employed in military campaigns. The 
excitements and the glory of war were the only 
excitements and glory that they understood, or 
had the means of enjoying. Their dwellings 
were great fortresses, built on the summits of 
the rocks, which, however picturesque and 
beautiful they appear as ruins now, were very 
gloomy and desolate as residences then. They 
were attractive enough when their inmates were 
flying to them for refuge from an enemy, or 
were employed within the walls in concentrat- 
ing their forces and brightening up their arms 
for some new expedition for vengeance or plun- 
der, but they were lonely and lifeless scenes of 
restlessness and discontent in times of quiet- 
ness and peace. 

It is diflicult for us, at this day, to conceive 
how destitute of all the ordinary means of 
comfort and enjoyment, in comparison with a 
modern dwelling, the ancient feudal castles 



66 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

must have been. They were placed in situa- 
tions as nearly inaccessible as possible, and the 
natural impediments of approach were increased 
by walls, and gates, and ditches, and draw- 
bridges. The door of access was often a win- 
dow in the wall, ten or fifteen feet from the 
ground, to which the inmates or their friends 
mounted by a ladder. The floors were of 
stone, the walls were naked, the ceiling was a 
rudely-constructed series of arches. The 
apartments, too, were ordinarily small, and 
were arranged one above another, in the succes- 
sive stories of a tower. Nor could these cell- 
like chambers be enlivened by the wide and 
cheerful windows of modern times, which not 
only admit the light to animate the scene 
within, but also afford to the spectator there, 
widespread, and sometimes enchanting views 
of the surrounding country. The castle win- 
dows of ancient days were, on the contrary, 
narrow loopholes, each at the bottom of a deep 
recess in the thick wall. If they had been 
made wide they would have admitted too easily 
the arrows and javelins of besiegers, as well as 
the wind and rain of wintry storms. There 
were no books in these desolate dwellings, no 
furniture but armor, no pleasures but drinking 
and carousals. 

Nor could these noble and valiant knights 
and barons occupy themselves in any useful 
employment. There was nothing which it was 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 67 

respectable for them to do but to fight. They 
looked down with contempt upon all the in- 
dustrial pursuits of life. The cultivation of 
farms, the rearing of flocks and herds, arts, 
manufactures, and commerce — everything of 
this sort, by which man can benefit his fellow- 
man, was entirely beneath them. In fact, their 
descendants to the present day, even in 
England, entertain the same ideas. Their 
younger sons can enter the army or the navy, 
and spend their lives in killing and destroying, 
or in awaiting, in idleness, dissipation, and 
vice, for orders to kill and destroy, without 
dishonor; but to engage in any way in those 
vast and magnificent operations of peaceful 
industry, on which the true greatness and 
glory of England depend, would be perpetual 
and irretrievable disgrace. A young nobleman 
can serve, in the most subordinate official 
capacity, on board a man-of-war, and take pay 
for it, without degradation; but to build a 
man-of-war itself and take pay for it, would be 
to compel his whole class to disown him. 

It was in consequence of this state of feeling 
among the knights and barons of William's 
day that peace was always tedious and irksome 
to them, and they were never contented except 
when engaged in battles and campaigns. It 
was this feeling, probably, quite as much as 
any settled hostility to William's right to 
reign, that made his barons so eager to engage 



68 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

in insurrections and rebellions. There was, 
however, after all, a real and deep-seated op- 
position to "William's right of succession, 
founded in the ideas of the day. They could 
not well endure that one of so humble and even 
ignominious birth, on the mother's side, 
should be the heir of so illustrious a line as 
the great dukes of Normandy. William's 
enemies were accustomed to designate him by 
opprobrious epithets, derived from the cir- 
cumstances of his birth. Though he was 
patient and enduring, and often very generous 
in forgiving other injuries, these insults to the 
memory of his mother always stung him verj' 
deeply, and awakened the strongest emotions 
of resentment. One instance of this was so 
conspicuous that it is recorded in almost all 
the histories of William that have been written. 
It was in the midst of one of the wars in 
which he was involved, that he was advancing 
across the country to the attack of a strong 
castle, which, in addition to the natural 
strength of its walls and fortifications, was de- 
fended by a numerous and powerful garrison. 
So confident, in fact, were the garrison in their 
numbers and power, that when they heard that 
William was advancing to attack them, they 
sent out a detachment to meet him. This de- 
tachment, however, were not intending to give 
him open battle. Their plan was to lay in am- 
buscade, and attack William's troops when 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDYo 69 

they came to the spot, and while they were un- 
aware of the vicinity of an enemy, and off their 
guard. 

William, however, they found, was not off 
his guard. He attacked the ambuscade with 
so much vigor as to put the whole force im- 
mediately to flight. Of course the fugitives 
directed their steps toward the castle. Will- 
iam and his soldiers followed them in head- 
long pursuit. The end was, that the detach- 
ment from the garrison had scarcely time, after 
making good their own entrance, to raise the 
drawbridges and secure the gates, so as to 
keep their pursuers from entering too. They 
did, however, succeed in doing this, and Will- 
iam, establishing his troops about the castle, 
opened his lines and commenced a regular 
siege. 

The garrison were very naturally vexed and 
irritated at the bad success of their intended 
stratagem. To have the ambuscade not only 
fail of its object, but to have also the men that 
formed it driven thus ignominiously in, and so 
narrowly escaping, also, the danger of letting 
in the whole troop of their enemies after them, 
was a great disgrace. To retaliate upon Will- 
iam, and to throw back upon him the feelings 
of mortification and chagrin which they felt 
themselves, they mounted the walls and towers, 
and shouted out all sorts of reproaches and 
insults. Finally, when they found that they 



70 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

could not make mere words sufficiently stinging, 
they went and procured skins and hides, and 
aprons of leather, and every thing else that 
they could find that was connected with the 
trade of a tanner, and shook them at the troops 
of their assailants from the towers and walls, 
with shouts of merriment and derision. 

William was desperately enraged at these 
insults. He organized an assaulting party, 
and by means of the great exertions which the 
exasperation of his men stimulated them to 
make, he carried some of the outworks, and 
took a number of prisoners. These prisoners 
he cut to pieces, and then caused their bloody 
and mangled limbs and members to be thrown, 
by great slings, over the castle walls. 

At one time during the period which is in- 
cluded within the limits of this chapter, and 
in the course of one of those intervals of peace 
and quietness within his own dominions which 
William sometimes enjoyed, the King of 
France became involved in a war with one of 
his own rebellious subjects, and William went, 
with an army of Normans, to render him aid. 
King Henry was at first highly gratified at this 
prompt and effectual succor, but he soon after- 
ward began to feel jealous of the universal 
popularity and renown which the young duke 
began soon to acquire. William was at that 
time only about twenty-four years old, but he 
took the direction of everything — moved to and 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 71 

fro with the utmost celerity— planned the cam- 
paigns—directed the sieges, and by his per- 
sonal accomplishments and his bravery, he won 
all hearts, and was the subject of everybody's 
praises. King Henry found himself sup- 
planted, in some measure, in the regard and 
honorable consideration of his subjects, and he 
began to feel very envious and jealous of his 
rival. 

Sometimes particular incidents would occur, 
in which William's feats of prowess or dex- 
terity would so excite the admiration of the 
army that he would be overwhelmed with ac- 
clamations and applause. These were gener- 
ally exploits of combat on the field, or of escape 
from pursuers when outnumbered, in which 
good fortune had often, perhaps, quite as much 
to do in securing the result as strength or 
courage. But in those days a soldier's good 
luck was perhaps as much the subject of ap- 
plause as his muscular force or his bravery; 
and, in fact, it was as deservedly so ; for the 
strength of arm, and the coolness, or, rather, 
the ferocity of courage, which make a good 
combatant in personal contests on a battlefield, 
are qualities of brutes rather than of men. 
We feel a species of respect for them in the 
lion or tiger, but they deserve only execration 
when exercised in the wantonness of hatred 
and revenge by man against his brother man. 

One of the instances of William's extraordi- 
6 



72 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

nary success was the following. He was re- 
connoitering the enemy on one occasion, accom- 
panied only by four or five kniglits, who acted 
as his attendants and bodyguard. The party 
were at a distance from the camp of the enemy, 
and supposed they were not observed. They 
were observed, however, and immediately a 
party of twelve chosen horsemen was formed, 
and ordered to ride out and surprise them. 
This detachment concealed themselves in an 
ambuscade, at a place where the reconnoitering 
party must pass, and when the proper moment 
arrived, they burst out suddenly upon them 
and summoned them to surrender. Twelve 
against six seemed to render both flight and 
resistance equally vain. William, however, 
advanced immediately to the attack of the am- 
buscaders. He poised his long lance, and, 
riding on with it at full speed, he unhorsed 
and killed the foremost of them at a blow. 
Then, just drawing back his weapon to gather 
strength for another blow, he killed the second 
of his enemies in the same manner. His fol- 
lowers were so much animated at this success- 
ful onset that they advanced very resolutely to 
the combat. In the meantime the shouts car- 
ried the alarm to William's camp, and a strong 
party set ojff to rescue William and his com- 
panions. The others then turned to fly, while 
William followed them so eagerly and closely, 
that he and they who were with him overtook 



WILLIAM'S REIGN IN NORMANDY. 73 

and disabled seven of them, and made them 
prisoners. The rest escaped. William and 
his party then turned and began to proceed 
toward their own camp, conveying their prison- 
ers in their train. 

They were met by King Henry himself at 
the head of a detachment of three hundred 
men, who, not knowing how much necessity 
there might be for efficient aid, were hastening 
to the scene of action. The sight of William 
coming home victorious, and the tales told by 
his. companions of the invincible strength and 
daring which he had displayed in the sudden 
danger, awakened a universal enthusiasm, and 
the plaudits and encomiums with which the 
whole camp resounded were doubtless as deli- 
cious and intoxicating to him as they were 
bitter to the king. 

It was by such deeds, and by such personal 
and mental characteristics as these thatWilliam, 
notwithstanding the untoward influences of his 
birth, fought his way, during the twenty years 
of which we have been speaking, into general 
favor, and established a universal renown. He 
completely organized and arrauged the internal 
affairs of his own kingdom, and established 
himself firmly upon the ducal throne. His 
mind had become mature, his resources were 
well developed, and his soul, always ambitious 
and aspiring, began to reach forward to the 
grasping of some grander objects of pursuit, 



74 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



and to the entering upon some wider field oi 
action than his duchy of Normandy could 
afford. During this interval, however, he was 




Matilda, Wife of William the Conqueror. 
married; and, as the circumstances of his mar- 
riage were somewhat extraordinary, we must 
make that event the subject of a separate 
chapter. 




CHAPTEE V. 

THE MARRIAGE. 

One of the most important points which an 
hereditary potentate has to attend to, in com- 
pleting his political arrangements, is the ques- 
tion of his marriage. Until he has a family 
and an heir, men's minds are unsettled, in re- 
spect to the succession, and the various rival 
candidates and claimants to the throne are 
perpetually plotting and intriguing to put 
themselves into a position to spring at once 
into his place if sickness, or a battle, or any 
sudden accident, should take him away. This 
evil was more formidable than usual in the 
case of William, for the men who were pre- 
pared to claim his place when he was dead, 
were all secretly or openly maintaining that 
their right to it was superior to his while he 
was living. This gave a double intensity to 
the excitement with which the public was per- 
petually agitated in respect to the crown, and 
kept the minds of the ambitious and the as- 
piring, throughout William's dominions, in a 
continual fever. It was obvious that a great 

75 



76 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

part of the cause of this restless looking for 
change and consequent planning to promote it 
■would be removed if William had a son. 

It became, therefore, an important matter of 
state policy that the duke should be married. 
In fact, the barons and military chieftains who 
were friendly to him urged this measure upon 
him, on account of the great effect which they 
perceived it would have in settling the minds 
of the people of the country and consolidating 
his power. William accordingly began to 
look around for a wife. It appeared, however, 
in the end, that, though policy was the main 
consideration which first led him to contem- 
plate marriage, love very probably exercised 
an imjiortaut influence in determining his 
choice of the lady ; at all events, the object of 
his choice was an object worthy of love. She 
was one of the most beautiful and accomplished 
princesses in Europe. 

She was the daughter of a great potentate 
who ruled over the country of Flanders. 
Flanders lies upon the coast, east of Nor- 
mandy, beyond the frontiers of France, and 
on the southern shore of the German Ocean. 
Her father's title was the Earl of Flanders. 
He governed his dominions, however, like a 
sovereign, and was at the head of a very effec- 
tive military power. His family, too, occupied 
a very high rank, and enjoyed great consider- 
ation among the other princes and potentates 



THE MARRIAGE. 77 

of Europe. It had intermarried with the royal 

family of Englaud, so that Matilda, the daugh- 
ter of the earl, whom William was disposed to 
make his bride, was fouud, by the genealo- 
gists, who took great interest in those days in 
tracing such connections, to have descended in 
a direct line from the great English king, 
Alfred himself. 

This relationship, by making Matilda's birth 
the more illustrious, operated strongly in favor 
of the match, as a great part of the motive 
which William had in view, in his intended 
marriage, was to aggrandize and strengthen his 
own position, by the connection which he was 
about to form. There was, however, another 
c(msanguiuity in the case which had a contrary 
tendency. Matilda's father had been con- 
nected with the Norman as well as with the 
English line, and Matilda and William were in 
some remote sense cousins. This circumstance 
led, in the sequel, as will presently be seen, to 
serious difficulty and trouble. 

Matilda was seven years younger than Will- 
iam. She was brought up in her father's 
court, and famed far and wide for her beauty 
and accomplishments. The accomplishments 
in which ladies of high rank sought to dis- 
tinguish themselves in those days were two, 
music and embroidery. The embroidery of 
tapestry was the great attainment, and in this 
art the young Matilda acquired great skill. 



78 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

The tapestry whicli was made in the Middle 
Ages was used to hang against the walls of 
some of the more ornamented rooms in royal 
palaces and castles, to hide the naked surface 
of the stones of which the building was con- 
structed. The cloths thus suspended were at 
first plain, afterward they began to be orna- 
mented with embroidered borders or other 
decorations, and at length ladies learned to 
employ their own leisure hours, and beguile 
the tedium of the long confinement which many 
of them had to endure within their castles, in 
embroidering various devices and designs on 
the hangings intended for their own chambers, 
or to execute such work as presents for their 
friends. Matilda's industry and skill in this 
kind of work were celebrated far and wide. 

The accomplishments which ladies take great 
pains to acquire in their early years are some- 
times, it is said, laid almost entirely aside 
after their marriage; not necessarily because 
they are then less desirous to please, but 
sometimes from the abundance of domestic 
duty, which allows them little time, and some- 
times from the pressure of their burdens of 
care or sorrow, which leave them no heart for 
the occupations of amusement or gayety. It 
seems not to have been so in Matilda's case, 
however. She resumed her needle often dur- 
ing the years of her wedded life, and after 
William had accomplished his conquest of 



THE MARRIAGE. • 79 

England she worked upon a long linen web, 
with immense labor, a series of designs illus- 
trating the various events and incidents of his 
campaign, and the work has been preserved to 
the present day. 

At least there is such a web now existing in 
the ancient town of Bayeux, in Normandy, 
which has been therefrom a period beyond the 
memory of men, and which tradition says was 
worked by Matilda. It would seem, however, 
that if she did it at all she must have done it 
"as Solomon built the temple — with a great 
deal of help;" for this famous piece of em- 
broidery, Avhich has been celebrated among all 
the historians and scholars of the world for 
several hundred years by the name of the Bay- 
eux Tapestry, is over four hundred feet long, 
and nearly two feet wide. The web is of 
linen, while the embroidery is of woolen. It 
was all obviously executed with the needle, and 
was worked with infinite labor and care. The 
woolen thread which was used was of various 
colors, suited to represent the different objects 
in the design, though these colors are, of 
course, now much tarnished and faded. 

The designs themselves are very simple and 
even rude, evincing very little knowledge of 
the principles of modern art. The specimens 
on the following page, of engravings made 
from them, will give some idea of the childish 
style of delineation which characterizes all 



80 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



Matilda's designs. Childish, however, as 
euch a style of drawing would be considered 





now, it seems to have been, in Matilda's days, 
very much praised and admired. 



THE MARRIAGE. 81 

We often have occasion to observe, in watch- 
ing the course of human affairs, the frailty 
and transitoriness of things apparently most 
durable and strong. In the case of this em- 
broidery, on the contrary, we are struck with 
the durability and permanence of what would 
seem to be most frail and fleeting. William's 
conquest of England took place in 1066. This 
piece of tapestry, therefore, if Matilda really 
worked it, is about eight hundred years old. 
And when we consider how delicate, slender, 
and frail is the fiber of a linen thread, and 
that the various elements of decay, always 
busy in the work of corrupting and destroying 
the works of man, have proved themselves 
powerful enough to waste away and crumble 
into ruin the proudest structures which he has 
ever attempted to rear, we are amazed that 
these slender filaments have been able to resist 
their action so long. The Bayeux tapestry has 
lasted nearly a thousand years. It will prob- 
ably last for a thousand years to come. So 
that that vast and resistless power, which de- 
stroyed Babylon and Troy, and is making visi- 
ble progress in the work of destroying the 
Pyramids, is foiled by the durability of a 
piece of needlework, executed by the frail and 
delicate fingers of a woman. 

We may have occasion to advert to the Bay- 
eux tapestry again, when we come to narrate 
the exploits which it was the particular object 



83 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

of this historical embroidery to illustrate and 
adorn. In the meantime, we return to our story. 

The matrimonial negotiations of princes and 
princesses are always conducted in a formal 
and ceremonious manner, and through the 
intervention of legates, ambassadors, and com- 
missioners without number, who are, of course, 
interested in protracting the proceedings, so 
as to prolong, as much as possible, their own 
diplomatic importance and power. Besides 
these accidental and temporary difficulties, it 
soon appeared that there were, in this case, 
some real and very formidable obstacles, which 
threatened for a time entirely to frustrate the 
scheme. 

Among these difficulties there was one which 
was not usually, in such cases, considered of 
much importance, but which in this instance 
seemed for a long time to put an effectual bar 
to William's wishes, and that was the aversion 
which the young princess herself felt for the 
match. She could have, one would suppose, 
no personal feeling of repugnance against 
William, for he was a tall and handsome cava- 
lier, highly graceful and accomplished, and 
renowned for his bravery and success in war. 
He was, in e-very respect, such a personage as 
would be most likely to captivate the imagina- 
tion of a maiden princess in those warlike 
times. Matilda, however, made objections to 
his birth. She could not consider him as the 



THE MARRIAGE. 83 

legitimate descendant and heir of the dukes of 
Normandy. It is true, he was then in posses- 
sion of the throne, but he was regarded by a 
large portion of the most powerful chieftains 
in his realm as a usurper. He was liable, at 
any time, on some sudden change of fortune, 
to be expelled from his dominions. His posi- 
tion, in a word, though for the time being 
very exalted, was too precarious and unstable, 
and his personal claims to high social rank 
were too equivocal, to justify her trusting her 
destiny in his hands. In a word, Matilda's 
answer to William's proposals was an abso- 
lute refusal to become his wife. 

These ostensible grounds, however, on which 
Matilda based her refusal, plausible as they 
were, were not the real and true ones. The 
secret motive was another attachment which 
she had formed. There had been sent to her 
father's court in Flanders, from the English 
king, a young Saxon ambassador, whose name 
was Brihtric, Brihtric remained some little 
time at the court in Flanders, and Matilda, 
who saw him often at the various entertain- 
ments, celebrations, and parties of pleasure 
which were arranged for his amusement, con- 
ceived a strong attachment to him. He was of 
a very fair complexion, and his features were 
expressive and beautiful. He was a noble of 
high position in England, though of course 
his rank was inferior to that of Matilda. As 



84 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

it would have beeD deemed hardly proper for 
him, under the circumstances of the case, to 
have aspired to the princess' hand, on account 
of the superiority of her social position, Ma- 
tilda felt that it was her duty to make known 
her sentiments to him, and thus to open the 
way. She did so; but she found, unhappy 
maiden, that Brihtric did not feel, himself, 
the love which he had inspired in her, and all 
the efforts and arts to which she was impelled 
by the instinct of affection proved wholly un- 
availing to call it forth. Brihtric, after ful- 
filling the object of his mission, took leave of 
Matilda coldly, while her heart was almost 
breaking, and went away. 

As the sweetest wine transforms itself into 
the sharpest vinegar, so the warmest and most 
ardent love turns, when it turns at all, to the 
most bitter and envenomed hate. Love gave 
place soon in Matilda's heart to indignation, 
and indignation to a burning thirst for revenge. 
The intensity of the first excitement subsided ; 
but Matilda never forgot and never forgave the 
disappointment and the indignity which she 
had endured. She had an opportunity long 
afterward to take terrible revenge on Brihtric 
in England, by subjecting him to cruelties and 
harships there which brought him to his grave. 

In the meantime, while her thoughts were so 
occupied with this attachment, she had, of 
course, no heart to listen favorably to Will- 



THE MARRIAGE. 85 

iam's proposals. Her friends would have 
attached no importance to the real cause of her 
aversion to the match, but they felt the force 
of the objections which could justly be ad- 
vanced against "William's rank, and his real 
right to his throne. Then the consanguinity 
of the parties was a great source of embarrass- 
ment and trouble. Persons as nearly related to 
each other as they were, were forbidden by the 
Eoman Catholic rules to marry. There was 
such a thing as getting a dispensation from the 
pope, by which the marriage would be author- 
ized. William accordingly sent ambassadors 
to Eome to negotiate this business. This, of 
course, opened a new field for difficulties and 
delays. 

The papal authorities were accustomed, in 
such cases, to exact as the price, or, rather, as 
the condition of their dispensation, some 
grant or beneficial conveyance from the parties 
interested, to the church, such as the foundation 
of an abbey or a monastery, the building of 
a chapel, or the endowment of a charity, by 
way, as it were, of making amends to the 
church, by the benefit thus received, for what- 
ever injury the cause of religion and morality 
might sustain by the relaxation of a divine 
law. Of course, this being the end in view, 
the tendency on the part of the authorities at 
Eome would be to protract the negotiations, so 
as to obtain from the suitor's impatience better 



86 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

ierms in the end. The ambassadors and com- 
missioners, too, on "William's part, would have 
no strong motive for hastening the jjroceedings. 
Eome was an agreeable place of residence, and 
to live there as the ambassador of a royal duke 
of Normandy was to enjoy a high degree of 
consideration, and to be surrounded continually 
by scenes of magnificence and splendor. Then, 
again, William himself -was not always at 
leisure to urge the business forward by giving 
it his own close attention ; for, during the 
period while these negotiations were pending, 
he was occupied, from time to time, with for- 
eign wars, or in the suppression of rebellions 
among his barons. Thus, from one cause and 
another, it seemed as if the business would 
never come to an end. 

In fact, a less resolute and determined man 
than W^illiam would have given up in despair, 
for it was seven years, it is said, before the 
affair was brought to a conclusion. Oue story 
is told of the impetuous energy which William 
manifested in this suit, which seems almost 
incredible. 

It was after the negotiations had been pro- 
tracted for several years, and at a time when 
the difiiculties were principally those arising 
from Matilda's opposition, that the occurrence 
took place. It was at an interview which 
William had with Matilda in the streets of 
Bruges, one of her father's cities. All that 



THE MARRIAGE. 87 

took place at the interview is not known, but 
in the end of it William's resentment at Matil- 
da's treatment of him lost all bounds.' He 
struck her or pushed her so violently as to 
throw her down upon the ground. It is said 
that he struck her repeatedly, and then, leaving 
her with her clothes all soiled and disheveled, 
rode off in a rage. Love quarrels are often 
the means of bringing the contending parties 
nearer together than they were before, but such 
a terrible love quarrel as this, we hope, is very 
rare. 

Violent as it was, however, it was followed 
by a perfect reconcilation,and in the end all ob- 
stacles were removed, and William and Matilda 
were married. The event took place in 1052. 

The marriage ceremony was performed at 
one of William's castles, on the frontiers of 
Normandy, as it is customary for princes and 
kings to be married always in their own do- 
minions. Matilda was conducted there with 
great pomp and parade by her parents, and 
was accompanied by a large train of attendants 
and friends. This company, mounted — both 
knights and ladies — on horses beautifully 
caparisoned, moved across the country like a 
little army on a march, or rather like a trium- 
phal procession escorting a queen. Matilda 
was received at the castle with distinguished 
honor, and the marriage celebrations, and the 
entertaiments accompanying it, were continued 
7 



88 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

for several days. It was a scene of unusual 
festivity and rejoicing. 

The dress both of William and Matilda, on 
this occasion, Avas very specially sijlendid. 
She wore a mantle studded with the most 
costly jewels; and, in addition to the other 
splendors of his dress, William too wore a 
mantle and helmet, both of which were richly 
adorned with the same costly decorations. So 
much importance was attached, in those days, 
to this outward show, and so great was the 
public interest taken in it, that these dresses 
of William and Matilda, with all the jewelry 
that adorned them, were deposited afterward 
in the great church at Bayeux, where they re- 
mained a sort of public spectacle, the property 
of the church, for nearly five hundred years. 

From the castle of Augi, where the marriage 
ceremonies were performed, William pro- 
ceeded, after these first festivities and rejoic- 
ings were over, to the great city of Koueu, con- 
ducting his bride thither with great pomp and 
parade. Here the young couple established 
themselves, living in the enjoyment of every 
species of luxury and splendor which were 
attainable in those days. As has already been 
said, the interiors, even of royal castles and 
palaces, presented but few of the comforts and 
conveniences deemed essential to the happiness 
of a home in modern times. The European 
ladies of the present day delight in their suits 



THE MARRIAGE. 89 

of retired and well-furnisbed apartmenta, 
adorned with velvet carpets, and silken cur- 
tains, and luxuriant beds of down, with sofas 
and couches adapted to every fancy which the 
caprice of fatigue or restlessness may assume, 
and cabinets stored with treasures, and libraries 
of embellished books — the whole scene illumi- 
nated by the splendor of gaslights, whose 
brilliancy is reflected by mirrors and candela- 
bras, sparkling with a thousand hues. Matil- 
da's feudal palace presented no such scenes as 
these. The cold stone floors were covered 
with mats of rushes. The walls — if the naked 
masonry was hidden at all — were screened by 
hangings of coarse tapestry, ornamented with 
uncouth and hideous figures. The beds were 
miserable pallets, the windows were loopholes, 
and the castle itself had all the architectural 
characteristics of a prison. 

Still, there was a species of luxury and 
splendor even then. Matilda had splendid 
horses to ride, all magnificently caparisoned. 
She had dresses adorned most lavishly with 
gold and jewels. There were troops of valiant 
knights, all glittering in armor of steel, to 
escort her on her journeys, and accompany and 
wait upon her on her excursions of pleasure ; 
and there were grand banquets and carousals, 
from time to time, in the long castle hall, with 
tournaments, and races, and games, and other 
military shows, conducted with great parade 



90 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

and pageantry. Matilda thus commenced her 
married life in luxury and splendor. 

In luxury and splendor, but not in peace. 
William had an uncle, whose name was Mau- 
ger. He was the Archbishop of Eouen, and 
was a dignitary of great influence and power. 
Now it was, of course, the interest of William's 
relatives that he should not be married, as 
every increase of probability that his crown 
would descend to direct heirs diminished their 
future chances of the succession, and of course 
undermined their present importance. Mauger 
had been very much opposed to this match, 
and had exerted himself in every way, while 
the negotiations were pending, to impede and 
delay them. The point which he most 
strenuously urged was the consanguinity of the 
parties, a point to which it was incumbent on 
him, as he maintained — being the head of the 
Church in Normandy — particularly to attend. 
It seems that, notwithstanding William's nego- 
tiations with the pope to obtain a dispensa- 
tion, the affair was not fully settled at Kome 
before the marriage ; and very soon after the 
celebration of the nuptials, Mauger fulminated 
an edict of excommunication against both Will- 
iam and Matilda, for intermarrying within the 
degrees of relationship which the canons of 
the church proscribed. 

\ An excommunication, in the Middle Ages, 
was a terrible calamity. The person thus con- 



THE MARRIAGE. 91 

demned was made, so far as such a sentence 
could effect it, an outcast from man, and a 
wretch accursed of heaven. The most terrible 
denunciations were uttered against him, and 
in the case of a prince, like that of William, 
his subjects were all absolved from their alle- 
giance, and forbidden to succor or defend him. 
A powerful potentate like William could main- 
tain himself for a time against the influence 
and effects of such a course, but it was pretty 
sure to work more and more strongly against 
him through the superstitions of the people, 
and to wear him out in the end. 

William resolved to appeal at once to the 
pope, and to effect, by some means or other, 
the object of securing his dispensation. There 
was a certain monk, then obscure and un- 
known, but who afterward became a very cele- 
brated public character, named Lanfranc, 
whom, for gome reason or other, William sup- 
posed to possess the necessary qualifications 
for this mission. He accordingly gave him 
his instructions and sent him away. Lanfranc 
proceeded to Eome, and there he managed the 
negotiation with the pope so dexterously as 
soon to bring it to a conclusion. 

The arrangement which he made was this. 
The pope was to grant the dispensation and 
confirm the mairiage, thus removing the sen- 
tence of excommunication which the Arch- 
bishop Mauger had pronounced, on condition 



92 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

that William should build and endow a hospital 
for a hundred poor persons, and also erect two 
abbeys, one to be built by himself, for monks, 
and one by Matilda, for nuns. Lanfranc 
agreed to these conditions on the part of Will- 
iam and Matilda, and they, when they came to 
be informed of them, accepted and confirmed 
them with great joy. The ban of excommuni- 
cation was removed ; all Normandy acquiesced 
in the marriage, and William and Matilda 
proceeded to form the plans and to superintend 
the construction of the abbeys. 

They selected the city of Caen for the site. 
The place of this city will be seen marked upon 
the map near the northern coast of Normandy.'* 
It was situated in a broad and pleasant valley, 
at the confluence of two rivers, and was sur- 
rounded by beautiful and fertile meadows. It 
was strongly fortified, being surrounded by 
walls and towers, which William's ancestors, 
the dukes of Normandy, had built. William 
and Matilda took a strong interest in the plans 
and constructions connected with the building 
of the abbeys. William's was a very extensive 
edifice, and contained within its iuclosures a 
royal palace for himself, where, in subsequent 
years, himself and Matilda often resided. 

The principal buildings of these abbeys 
still stand, though the walls and fortifications 

* See map, page 161. 



THE MARRIAGE. 93 

of Caen are gone. The buildings are used now 
for other purposes than those for which they 
were erected, but they retain the names origin- 
ally given them, and are visited by great num- 
bers of tourists, being regarded with great 
interest as singular memorials of the past — ^twin 
monuments commemorating an ancient mar- 
riage. 

The marriage being thus finally confirmed 
and acquiesced in, William and Matilda en- 
joyed a long period of domestic peace. The 
oldest child was a son. He was born within 
a year of the marriage, and William named him 
Robert, that, as the reader will recollect, hav- 
ing been the name of William's father. There 
was, in process of time, a large family of 
children. Their names were Eobert, William 
Eufus, Henry, Cecilia, Agatha, Constance, 
Adela, Adelaide, and Gundred. Matilda 
devoted herself with great maternal fidelity to 
the care and education of these children, and 
many of them became subsequently historical 
personages of the highest distinction. 

The object which, it will be recollected, was 
one of William's main inducements for con- 
tracting this alliance, namely, the strengthen- 
ing of his power by thus connecting himself 
with the reigning family of Flanders, was, in 
a great measure, accomplished. The two 
governments, leagued together by this natural 
tie, strengthened each other's power, and 



94 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

often rendered eacli other essential assistance, 
though there was one occasion, subsequently, 
when William's reliance on this aid was dis- 
appointed. It was as follows : 

When he was planning his invasion of Eng- 
land, he sent to Matilda's brother, Baldwin, 
who was then Count of Flanders, inviting him 
to raise a force and join him. Baldwin, who 
considered the enterprise as dangerous and 
Quixotic, sent back word to inquire what share 
of the English territory William would give 
him if he would go and help him conquer it. 
William thought that this attempt to make a 
bargain, beforehand, for a division of spoil, 
evinced a very mercenary and distrustful spirit 
on the part of his brother-in-law — a spirit 
which he was not at all disposed to encourage. 
He accordingly took a sheet of parchment, and 
writing nothing within, he folded it in the 
form of a letter, and wrote upon the outside 
the following rhyme : 

"Beau frere, en Angleterre vous aurez 
Ce qui dedans escript, vous trnuverez." 

Which royal distich might be translated thus : 

" Your share, good brother, of the land we win, 
You'll find entitled and described within." 

William forwarded the empty missive by the 
hand of a messenger, who delivered it to Bald- 
win as if it were a dispatch of great conse- 



THE MARRIAGE. 95 

quence. Baldwin received it eagerly, and 
opened it at once. He was surprised at find- 
ing nothing within ; and after turning the 
parchment every way, in a vain search after the 
description of his share, he asked the messen- 
ger what it meant. "It means," said he, 
"that as there is nothing writ within, so 
nothing you shall have." 




Normans Embarking for England. 



^J^ JJJ. 




CHAPTER VL 



THE LADY EMMA. 



It is not to be supposed that, even in the 
warlike times of which we are writing, such a 
potentate as a duke of Normandy would invade 
a country like England, so large and powerful 
in comparison to his own, without some pre- 
text. William's pretext was, that he himself 
was the legitimate successor to the English 
crown, and that the English king who pos- 
sessed it at the time of his invasion was a 
usurper. In order that the reader may under- 
stand the nature and origin of this his claim, 
it is necessary to relate somewhat in full the 
story of the Lady Emma 

By referring to the genealogy of the Nor- 
man line of dukes contained in the second 
chapter of this volume, it will be seen that 
Emma was the daughter of the first Eichard. 
She was celebrated in her early years for her 
great personal beauty. They called her the 
Pearl of Norjnanuy. 

She married, at length, one of the kings of 
England, whose name was Ethelred. England 
was at that time distracted by civil wars, 



THE LADY EMMA. 



97 



waged between the two antagonist races of 
Saxons and Danes. There were, in fact, two 
separate dynasties or lines of kings, who were 
contending, all the time, for the mastery. In 
these contests sometimes the Danes would 
triumph for a time and sometimes the Saxous ; 
and sometimes both races would have a roj'al 
representative in the field, each claiming the 
throne, and reigning over separate portions of 
the island. Thus there were, at certain periods, 
two kingdoms in England, both covenug the 
same territory, and claiming the government of 
the same population— with two kings, two 
capitals, two administrations — while the 
wretched inhabitants were distracted and 
ruined by the terrible conflicts to which these 
hostile pretensions gave rise. 

Ethelred was of the Saxon line. He was a 
widower at the time of his marriage to Emma, 
nearly forty years old, and he had, among 
other children by his former wife, a son named 
Edmund, an active, energetic young man, who 
afterward became king. One motive which he 
had in view in marrying Emma was to 
strengthen his position by securing the alliance 
of the Normans of Normandy. The Danes, 
his English enemies, were Normans. The 
government of Normandy would therefore be 
naturallv inclined to take part with them. By 
this marriage, however, Ethelred hoped to de- 
tach tl^ Normans of France from the cause of 



98 WILLIAJM THE CONQUEROR. 

his enemies, and to unite them to his own. He 
would thus gain a double advantage strengthen- 
ing himself by an accession which weakened 
his foes. 

His plan succeeded so far as inducing 
Richard himself, the Duke of Normandy, to 
espouse his cause, but it did not enable Ethel- 
red to triumph over his enemies. They, on 
the contrary conquered him, and in the end 
drove him from the country altogether. He 
fled to Normandy for refuge, with Emma his 
wife, and his two young sons. Their names 
were Edward and Alfred. 

Richard II., Emma's brother, who was then 
the Duke of Normandy, received the unhappy 
fugitives with great kindness, although he, at 
least scarcely deserved it. It was not surpris- 
ing that he was driven from his native realm, for 
he possessed none of those high qualities of 
mind which fit men to conquer or to govern. 
Like all other weak-minded tyrants he substi- 
tuted cruelty for wisdom and energy in his 
attempts to subjugate his foes. As soon as he 
was married to Emma, for instance, feeling 
elated and strong at the great accession of power 
which he imagined he had obtained by this 
alliance, he planned a general massacre of the 
Danes, and executed it, on a given day, by 
means of private orders, sent secretly through- 
out the kingdom. Vast numbers of the Danes 
were destroyed; and so great was tl^,. hatred 



THE LADY EMMA. 99 

of the two races for each other, that they whc 
had these bloody orders to obey executed them 
with a savage cruelty that was absolutely hor- 
rible. In one instance they buried women to 
the waist, and then set dogs upon them, to tear 
their naked flesh until they died in agony. It 
would be best, in narrating history to suppress 
such horrid details as these, were it not that in 
a land like this, where so much depends upon 
the influence of every individual in determining 
whether the questions and discussions which 
are from time to time arising, and are hereafter 
to arise, shall be settled peacefully, or by a 
resort to violence and civil war, it is very im- 
portant that we should all know what civil war 
is, and to what horrible atrocities it inevitably 
leads. 

Alfred the Great, when he was contending 
with the Danes in England, a century before 
this time, treated them, so far as he gained ad- 
vantages over them, with generosity and kind- 
ness ; and this policy wholly conquered them 
in the end. Ethelred, on the other hand, tried 
the effect of the most tyrannical cruelty, and 
the effect was only to arouse his enemies to 
a more determined and desperate resistance. It 
was the frenzy of vengeance and hate that these 
atrocities awakened everywhere among the 
Danes, which nerved them with so much vigor 
and strength that they finally expelled him 
from the island ; so that, when he arrived in 



100 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Normandy, a fugitive and an exile, he came in 
the character of a dethroned tyrant, execrated 
for his senseless and atrocious cruelties, and 
not in that of an unhappy prince driven from 
his home by the pressure of unavoidable 
calamity. Nevertheless, Richard, the Duke of 
Normandy, received him, as we have already 
said, with kindness. He felt the obligation of 
receiving the exiled monarch in a hospitable 
manner, if not on his own account, at least for 
the sake of Emma and the clr'ldren. 

The origin and end of Emma's interest in 
Ethelred seems to have been merely ambition. 
The "Pearl of Normandy" had given herself 
to this monster for the sake, apparently, of the 
glory of being the English queen. Her subse- 
quent conduct compels the readers of history 
to make thi.-^ supposition, which otherwise 
would be uncharitable. She now mourned her 
disappointment in finding that, instead of 
being sustained by her husband in the lof'y 
position to which she aspired, she was obliged 
to come back to her former home again, to be 
once more dependent, and with the additional 
burden of her husband himself, and her chil- 
dren, upon her father's family. Her situation 
was rendered even still more humiliating, in 
some degree, by the circumstance that her 
father was no longer alive, and that it was to 
her brother, on whom her natural claim was 
far less strong, that she had now to look for 

4i'* ■ 



THE LADY EMMA. 101 

shelter and protection. Kichard, however, 
received them all iu a kind and generous man- 
ner. 

In the meantime, the wars and commotions 
which had driven Ethelred away continued to 
rage in England, the Saxons gradually gaining 
ground against the Danes. At length the king 
of the Danes, who had seized the government 
when Ethelred was expelled, died. The Saxons 
then regained their former power, and they 
sent commissioners to Ethelred to propose his 
return to England. At the same time, they 
expressed their unwillingness to receive him, 
unless they could bind him, by a solemn treaty, 
to take a very different course of conduct, in 
the future management of his government, from 
that which he had pursued before. Ethelred 
and Emma were eager to regain, on any terms, 
their lost throne. They sent over ambassadors 
empowered to make, in Ethelred's name, any 
promises which the English nobles might de- 
mand; and shortly afterward the royal pair 
crossed the channel and went to London, and 
Ethelred was acknowledged there by the Saxon 
portion of the population of the island once 
more as king. 

The Danes, however, though weakened, 
were not yet disposed to submit. They de- 
clared their allegiance to Canute, who was the 
successor in the Danish line. Then followed 
a long war between Canute and Ethelred. 



102 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Canute was a man of extraordinary sagacity 
and intelligence, and also of great courage and 
energy. Ethelred, on the other hand, proved 
himself, notwithstanding all his promises, in- 
curably inefficient, cowardlj', and cruel. In 
fact, his son Prince Edmund, the son of his 
first wife, was far more efficient than his father 
in resisting Canute and the Danes. Edmund 
was active and fearless, and he soon acquired 
very extensive power. In fact, he seems to 
have held the authority of his father in very 
little respect. One striking instance of this 
insubordination occurred. Ethelred had taken 
offense, for some reason or other, at one of the 
nobles in his realm, and had put him to death, 
and confiscated his estates ; and, in addition to 
this, with a cruelty characteristic of him, he 
shut up the unhappy widow of his victim, a 
young and beautiful woman, in a gloomy con- 
vent, as a prisoner. Edmund, his son, went 
to the convent, liberated the prisoner, and 
made her his own wife. 

With such unfriendly relations between the 
king and his son, who seems to have been the 
ablest general in his father's army, there could 
be little hope of making head against such an 
enemy as Canute the Dane. In fact, the course 
of public affairs went on from bad to worse, 
Emma leading all the time a life of unceasing 
anxiety and alarm. At length, in 1016, Ethel- 
red died, and Emma's cup of disappointment 



THE LADY EMMA. 103 

and humiliation was now full. Her own sons, 
Edward and Alfred, had no claims to the 
crown; for Edmund, being the son by a former 
marriage, was older than they. They were too 
young to take personally an active part in the 
fierce contests of the day, and thus fight their 
way to importance and power. And then 
Edmund, who was now to become king, would, 
of course, feel no interest in advancing them, 
or doing honor to her. A son who would 
thwart and counteract the plans and measures 
of a father, as Edmund had done, would be 
little likely to evince much deference or regard 
for a mother-in-law, or for half-brothers, 
whom he would naturally consider as his rivals. 
In a word, Emma had reason to be alarmed at the 
situation of insignificance and danger in which 
she found herself suddenly placed. She fled a 
second time, in destitution and distress, to her 
brother's in Normandy. She was now, how- 
ever, a widow, and her children were father- 
less. It is difiicult to decide whether to con- 
sider her situation as better or worse, on this 
account, than it was at her former exile. 

Her sons were lads, but little advanced be- 
yond the period of childhood; and Edward, 
the eldest, on whom the duty of making exer- 
tions to advance the family interests would first 
devolve, was of a quiet and gentle spirit, giving 
little promise that he would soon be disposed 
to enter vigorously upon military campaigns. 



104 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Edmund, on the other hand, -uho was now 
king, was in the prime of life, and was a man 
of great spirit and energy. There was a 
reasonable prospect that he would live many 
years ; and even if he were to be suddenly cut 
off, there seemed to be no hope of the restora- 
tion of Emma to importance or power; for 
Edmund was married and had two sons, one of 
whom would be entitled to succeed him in case 
of his decease. It seemed, therefore, to be 
Emma's destiny now, to spend the remainder 
of her days with her children in neglect and 
obscurity. The case resulted differently, how- 
ever, as we shall see in the end. 

Edmund, notwithstanding his prospect of a 
long and prosperous career, was cut off sud- 
denly, after a stormy reign of one year. Dur- 
ing his reign, Canute the Dane had been fast 
gaining ground in England, notwithstanding 
the vigor and energy with which Edmund had 
opposed him. Finally, the two monarchs 
assembled their armies, and were about to fight 
a great final battle. Edmund sent a flag of 
truce to Canute's camp, proposing that, to save 
the effusion of blood, they should agree to 
decide the case by single combat, and that he 
and Canute should be the champions, and fight 
in presence of the armies. Canute declined 
this proposal. He was himself small and 
slender in form, while Edmund was distin- 
guished for his personal development and mus- 



THE LADY EMMA, 107 

cular strength. Canute therefore declined the 
personal contest, but offered to leave the ques- 
tion to the decision of a council chosen from 
among the leading nobles on either side. This 
plan was finally adopted. The council con- 
vened, and, after long deliberations, they 
framed a treaty by which the country was di- 
vided between the two potentates, and a sort of 
peace was restored. A very short period after 
this treaty was settled, Edmund was murdered. 
Canute immediately laid claim to the whole 
realm. He maintained that it was a part of 
the treaty that the partition of the kingdom 
was to continue only during their joint lives, 
and that, on the death of either, the whole was 
to pass to the survivor of them. The Saxon 
leaders did not admit this, but they were in no 
condition very strenuously to oppose it. 
Ethelred's sous by Emma were too young to 
come forward as leaders yet; and as to 
Edmund's, they were mere children. There 
was, therefore, no one whom they could pro- 
duce as an efficient representative of the Saxon 
line, and thus the Saxons were compelled to 
submit to Canute's pretensions, at least for a 
time. They would not wholly give up the 
claims of Edmund's children, but they con- 
sented to waive tliem for a season. They gave 
Canute the guardianship of the boys until they 
should become of age, and allowed him, in the 
meantime, to reign, himself, over the whole 
land. 



108 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Canute exercised his power in a very discreet 
and judicious manner, seeming intent, in all 
his arrangements, to protect the rights and in- 
terests of the Saxons as well as of the Danes. 
It might be supposed that the lives of the 
young Saxon princes, Edmund's sons, would 
not have been safe in his hands; but the policy 
which he immediately resolved to pursue was 
to conciliate the Saxons, and not to intimidate 
and coerce them. He therefore did the young 
children no harm, but sent them away out of 
the country to Denmark, that they might, if 
possible, be gradually forgotten. Perhaps he 
thought that, if the necessity should arise for 
it, they might there, at any time, be put 
secretly to death. 

There was another reason still to prevent 
Canute's destroying these children, which was, 
that if they were removed, the claims of the 
Saxon line would not thereby be extinguished, 
but would only be transferred to Emma's chil- 
dren in Normandy, who, being older, were likely 
the sooner to be in a condition to give him 
trouble as rivals. It Avas therefore a very wise 
and sagacious policy which prompted him to 
keep the young children of Edmund alive, 
but to remove them to a safe distance out of 
the way. 

In respect to Emma's children, Canute con- 
ceived a different plan for guarding against any 
danger which came from their claims, and that 



THE LADY EMMA. 109 

was, to propose to take their mother for his 
wife. By this plan her family would come into 
his power, and then her own influence and that 
of her Norman friends would be forever pre- 
vented from taking sides against him. He ac- 
cordingly made the proposal. Emma was am- 
bitious enough of again returning to her former 
position of greatness as English queen to ac- 
cept it eagerly. The world condemned her for 
being so ready to marry, for her second hus- 
band, the deadly enemy and rival of the first; 
but it was all one to her whether her husband 
was Saxon or Dane, provided that she could be 
queen. 

The boys, or, rather, the young men, for 
they were now advancing to maturity, were 
very strongly opposed to this connection. 
They did all in their power to prevent its con- 
summation, and they never forgave their mother 
for thus basely betraying their interests. 
They were the more incensed at this transac- 
tion, because it was stipulated in the marriage 
articles between Canute and Emma that their 
future children — the offspring of the marriage 
then contracted — should succeed to the throne 
of England, to the exclusion of all previously 
born on either side. Thus Canute fancied that 
he had secured his title, and that of his de- 
scendants, to the crown forever, and Emma 
prepared to return to England as once more 
its queen. The marriage was celebrated with 



110 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

great pomp and splendor, and Emma, bidding 
Normandy and her now alienated children 
farewell, was conducted in state to the royal 
palace in London. 

We must now pass over, with a very few 
•words, a long interval of twenty years. It was 
the period of Canute's reign, which was pros- 
perous and peaceful. During this period 
Emma's Norman sons continued in Normandy. 
She had another son in England a few years 
after her marriage, who was named Canute, 
after his father, but he is generally known in 
history by the name of Hardicanute, the prefix 
being a Saxon word denoting energetic or 
strong. Canute had also a very celebrated 
minister in his government named Godwin. 
Godwin was a Saxon of a very humble origin, 
and the history of his life constitutes quite a 
romantic tale.* He was a man of extraor- 
dinary talents and character, and at the time 
of Canute's death he was altogether the most 
powerful subject in the realm. 

When Canute found that he was about to 
die, and began to consider what arrangements 
he should make for the succession, he con- 
cluded that it would not be safe for him to ful- 
fill the agreement made in his marriage contract 
with Emma, that the children of that marriage 
should inherit the kingdom ; for Hardicanute, 

* It i» given at length in the last chapter of our history 
of Alfred the Great. 



THE LADY EMMA. Ill 

who was entitled to succeed under that cove- 
nant, was only about sixteen or seventeen years 
old, and consequently too young to attempt to 
govern. He therefore made a will, in which 
he left the kingdom to an older son, named 
Harold — a son whom he had had before his 
marriage with Emma. This was the signal 
for a new struggle. The influence of the 
Saxons and of Emma's friends was of course 
in favor of Hardicanute, while the Danes 
espoused the cause of Harold. Godwin at 
length taking sides with this last-named party, 
Harold was established on the throne, and 
Emma and all her children, whether descended 
from Ethelred or Canute, were set aside and 
forgotten. 

Emma was not at all disposed to acquiesce 
in this change of fortune. She remained in 
England, but was secretly incensed at her 
second husband's breach of faith toward her; 
and as he had abandoned the child of his mar- 
riage with her for Ms former children, she 
now determined to abandon him for hers. She 
gave up Hardicanute's cause, therefore, and 
began secretly to plot among the Saxon popu- 
lation for bringing forward her sou Edward to 
the throne. "When she thought that things 
were ripe for the execution of the plot, she 
wrote a letter to her children in Normandy, 
saying to them that the Saxon population were 
weary of the Danish line, and were ready, she 



112 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

believed, to rise in behalf of tlie ancient Saxon 
line, if the true representative of it would 
appear to lead them. She therefore iuvited 
them to come to London and consult with her 
on the subject. She directed them, however, 
to come, if they came at all, in a quiet and 
peaceful manner, and without any appearance 
oi hostile intent, inasmuch as anythiijg which 
might seem like a foreign invasion would 
awaken universal jealousy and alarm. 

When this letter was received by the brothers 
in Normandy, the eldest, Edward, declined to 
go, but gave his consent that Alfred should 
undertake the expedition if he were disposed. 
Alfred accepted the proposal. In fact, the 
temperament and character of the two brothers 
were very different. Edward was sedate, seri- 
ous, and timid. Alfred was ardent and aspir- 
ing. The younger, therefore, decided to take 
the risk of crossing the channel, while the 
elder preferred to remain at home. 

The result was very disastrous. Contrary 
to his mother's instructions, Alfred took with 
him quite a troop of Norman soldiers. He 
crossed the channel in safety, and advanced 
across the country some distance toward Lon- 
don. Harold sent out a force to intercept 
him. He was surrounded, and he himself and 
all his followers were taken prisoners. He 
was sentenced to lose his ejes, and he died in 
a few days after the execution of this terrible 



THE LADY EMMA. 113 

sentence, from the mingled effects of fever and 
of mental anguish and despair. Emma fled to 
Flanders. 

Finally Harold died, and Hardicanute suc- 
ceeded him. In a short time Hardicanute 
died, leaving no heirs, and now, of course, 
there was no one left^ to compete with Emma's 
oldest son Edward, who had remained all this 
time quietly in Normandy. He was accord- 
ingly proclaimed king. This was in 1041. 
He reigned for twenty years, having commenced 
his reign about the time that William the Con- 
queror was established in the possession of his 
dominions as Duke of Normandy. Edward 
had known William intimately during his long 
residence in Normandy, and William came to 
visit him in England in the course of his 
reign. William, in fact, considered himself as 
Edward's heir ; for as Edward, though married, 
had no children, the dukes of the Norman line 
were his nearest relatives. He obtained, he 
said, a promise from Edward that Edward 
would sanction and confirm his claim to the 
English crown, in the event of his decease, by 
bequeathing it to William in his will. 

Emma was now advanced in years. The 
ambition which had been the ruling principle 
of her life would seem to have been well satis- 

* The children of Ethelred's oldest son, Edmund, wtre 
in Hungary at this time, and seem to have been well-uieh 
forgotten. * 



114 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 

fiedjSo far as it is possible to satisfy ambition, 
for she had had two husbands and two sons, all 
kings of England. But as she advanced to- 
ward the close of her career she found herself 
wretched and miserable. Her son Edward 
could not forgive her for her abandonment of 
himself and his brother, to marry a man who 
was their own and their father's bitterest 
enemy. She had made a formal treaty in her 
marriage convenant to exclude them from the 
throne. She had treated them with neglect 
during all the time of Canute's reign, while she 
was living with him in London in power and 
splendor. Edward accused her, also, of having 
connived at his brother Alfred's death. The 
story is that he caused her to be tried on this 
charge by the ordeal of fire. This method 
consisted of laying red-hot irons upon the 
stone floor of a church at certain distances from 
each other and requiring the accused to walk 
over them with naked feet. If the accused was 
innocent. Providence, as they supposed, would 
so guide bis footsteps that he should not touch 
the irons. Thus, if he was innocent, he would 
go over safely ; if guilty, he would be burned. 
Emma, according to the story of the times, was 
subjected to this test in the cathedral of Win- 
chester, to determine whether she was cogni- 
zant of the murder of her son. Whether this 
is true or not, there is no doubt that Edward 
confined her a prisoner in the monastery at 



THE LADY EMMA. 115 

Winchester, where she ended her days at last 
in neglect and wretchedness. 

When Edward hinaself drew near to the close 
of his life, his mind was greatly perplexed in 
respect to the succession. There was one de- 
scendant of his brother Edmund — whose chil- 
dren, it will be remembered, Canute had sent 
away to Denmark, in order to remove them out 
of the way— who was still living in Hungary. 
The name of this descendant was Edward. He 
was, in fact, the lawful heir to the crown. But 
he had spent his life in foreign countries, and 
was now far away ; and, in the meantime, the 
Earl Godwin, who has been already mentioned 
as the great Saxon nobleman who rose from a 
very humble rank to the position of the most 
powerful subject in the realm, obtained such an 
influence, and wielded so great a power, that he 
seemed at one time stronger than the king him- 
self. Godwin at length died, but his son 
Harold, who was as energetic and active as his 
father, inherited his power, and seemed, as 
Edward thought, to be aspiring to the future 
possession of the throne. Edward had hated 
Godwin and all his family, and was now ex- 
tremely anxious to prevent the possibility of 
Harold's accession. He accordingly sent to 
Hungary to bring Edward, his nephew, home. 
Edward came bringing his family with him. 
He had a young son named Edgar. It was 
King Edward's plan to make arrangements for 



116 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

bringing this Prince Edward to the throne 
after his death, that Harold might be excluded. 
The plan was a very judicious one but it was 
unfortunately frustrated by Prince Edward's 
death, which event took place soon after he ar- 
rived in England. The young Edgar, then a 
child, was, of course, his heir. The king was 
convinced that no government which could be 
organized in the name of Edgar would be able 
to resist the mighty power of Harold, and he 
turned his thoughts, therefore, again to the ac- 
cession of William of Normandy, who was the 
nearest relative on his mother's side, as the 
only means of saving the realm from falling 
into the hands of the usurper Harold. A long 
and vexatious contest then ensued, in which the 
leading powers and influences of the kingdom 
were divided and distracted by the plans, plots, 
maneuvers, and counter maneuvers of Harold to 
obtain the accession for himself, and of Edward 
to secure it for William of Normandy. In this 
contest Harold conquered in the first instance, 
and Edward and William in the end. 





CHAPTEE VII. 

KING HAKOLD. 

Haeold, the son of the Earl Godwin, who 
was maneuveriDg to gain i^ossession of the 
English throne, and William of Normandy, 
though they lived on opposite sides of the 
English channel, the one in France and the 
other in England, were still personally known 
to each other; for not only had William, as 
was stated in the last chapter, paid a visit to 
England, but Harold himself, on one occasion, 
made an excursion to Normandy. The circum- 
stances of this expedition were, in some re- 
spects, quite extraordinary, and illustrate in a 
striking manner some of the peculiar ideas 
and customs of the times. They were as fol- 
lows: 

During the life of Harold's father Godwin, 
there was a very serious quarrel between him, 
that is, Godwin, and King Edward, in which 
both the king and his rebellious subject mar- 
shaled their forces, and for a time waged 
against each other an open and sauguinary 
war. In this contest the power of Godwin had 

117 



118 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

proved so formidable, and the military forces 
wliicb be succeeded in marslialiug under his 
banners were so great, that Edward's govern 
ment was unable effectually to put him down> 
At length, after a long and terrible struggle, 
which involved a large part of the country in 
the horrors of a civil war, the belligerents 
made a treaty with each other, which settled 
their quarrel by a sort of compromise. God- 
win was to retain his high position and rank 
as a subject, and to continue in the government 
of certain portions of the island which had 
long been under his jurisdiction; he, on his 
part, promising to dismiss his armies, and to 
make war ui)on the king no more. He bound 
himself to the faithful performance of these 
covenants by giving the king hostages. 

The hostages given up on such occasions 
were always near and dear relatives and friends, 
and the understanding was, that if the party 
giving them failed in fulfilling his obligations, 
the innocent and helpless hostages were to be 
entirely at the mercy of the other party into 
whose custody they had been given. The 
latter would, in such cases, imprison them, 
torture them, or put them to death, with a 
greater or less degree of severity in respect to 
the intliction of pain, according to the degree 
of exasperation which the real or fancied in- 
jury which he had received awakened in his 
mind. 



KINCx HAROLD. 119 

This cruel method of binding fierce and un- 
principled men to the performance of their 
promises has been universally abandoned in 
modern times, though in the rude and early 
stages of civilization it has been practiced 
among all nations, ancient and modern. The 
hostages chosen were often of young and tender 
years, and were always such as to render the 
separation which took place when they were 
torn from their friends most painful, as it 
was the very object of the selection to obtain 
those who were most beloved. They were de- 
livered into the hands of those whom they had 
always regarded as their bitterest enemies, and 
who, of course, were objects of aversion and 
terror. They were sent away into places of 
confiement and seclusion, and kept in the cus- 
tody of strangers, where they lived in perpet- 
ual fear that some new outbreak between the 
contending parties would occur, and consign 
them to torture or death. The cruelties some- 
times inflicted, in such cases, on the innocent 
hostages, were awful. At one time, during 
the contentions between Ethelred and Canute, 
Canute, being driven across the country to the 
seacoast, and there compelled to embark on 
board his ship to make his escape, was cruel 
enough to cut off the hands and the feet of 
some hostages which Ethelred had previously 
given him, and leave them writhing in agony 

on the sands of the shore. 
9 



120 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

The hostages which are particularly named 
by historians as given by Godwin to King 
Edward were his son and his grandson. Their 
names were Ulnoth and Hacune, Ulnoth, of 
course, was Harold's brother, and Hacune his 
nephew. Edward, thinking that Godwin would 
contrive some means of getting these securities 
back into his possession again if he attempted 
to keep them in England, decided to send them 
to Normandy, and to put them under the 
charge of William the duke for safe keeping. 
When Godwin died, Harold applied to Edward 
to give up the hostages, since, as he alleged, 
there was no longer any reason for detaining 
them. They had been given as security for 
Godwin s good behavior, and now Godwin was 
no more. 

Edward could not well refuse to surrender 
them, aud yet, as Harold succeeded to the 
power, and evidently possessed all the ambi- 
tion of his father, it seemed to be, politically, 
as necessary to retain the hostages now as it 
had been before. Edward, therefore,, without 
absolutely refusing to surrender them, post- 
poned and evaded compliance with Harold's 
demand, on the ground that the hostages were 
in Normandy. He was going, he said, to 
send for them as soon as he could make the 
necessary arrangements for bringing them 
home in safety. 

Under these circumstances, Harold deter- 



KING HAROLD. 131 

mined to go and bring them himself. He pro- 
posed this plan to Edward. Edward would 
not absolutely refuse his consent, but he did 
all in his power to discourage such an expedi- 
tion. He told Harold that William of Nor- 
mandy was a crafty and powerful man; that 
by going into his dominions he would put him- 
self entirely into his power, and would be cer- 
tain to involve himself in some serious diflfi- 
culty. This interview between Harold and the 
king is commemorated on the Bayeux tapestry 
by the following uncouth design. 

What effect Edward's disapproval of the 
project produced upon Harold's mind is not 
certainly known. It is true that he went 
across the Channel, but the accounts of the 
crossing are confused and contradictory, some 
of them stating that, while sailing for pleasure 
with a party of attendants and companions on 
the coast, he was blown off from the shore and 
driven across to France by a storm. The 
probability, however, is, that this story was 
only a pretense. He was determined to go, 
but, not wishing to act openly in defiance of 
the king's wishes, he contrived to be blown off, 
in order to make it seem that he went against 
his will. 

At all events, the storm was real, whether 
his being compelled to leave the English shores 
by the power of it was real or pretended. It 
carried him, too, out of his course, driving 



122 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



him up the Channel to the eastward of Nor- 
mandy, where he had intended to land, and at 
length throwing his galley, a wreck, on the 
shore, not far from the mouth of the Somme. 




Harold's Interview with Edward. 

The galley itself was broken up, but Harold 
and his company escaped to land. They found 
that they were in the dominions of a certain 
prince who held possessions on that coast, 
whose style and title was Guy, count of Pon- 
thieu. 



KING HAROLD. 123 

The law in those days was, that wrecks be- 
came the property of the lord of the territory 
on the shores of which they occurred; and 
not only were the ships and the goods which 
they contained thus confiscated in case of such 
a disaster, but the owners themselves became 
liable to be seized and held captive for a ran- 
som. Harold, knowing his danger, was at- 
tempting to secrete himself on the coast till he 
could get to Normandy, when a fisherman who 
saw him, and knew by his dress and appear- 
ance, and by the deference with which he was 
treated by the rest of the company, that he was 
a man of great consaquence in his native land, 
went to the count, and said that for ten crowns 
he would show him where there was a man who 
would be worth a thousand to him. The count 
came down with his retinue to the coast, seized 
the unfortunate adventurers, took possession of 
all the goods and baggage that the waves had 
spared, and shut the men themselves up in his 
castle at Abbeville till they could pay their 
ransom. 

Harold remonstrated against this treatment. 
He said that he was on his way to Normandy 
on business of great importance with the duke, 
from the King of England, and that he could 
not be detained. But the count was very de- 
cided in refusing to let him go without his 
ransom. Harold then sent word to William, 
acquainting him with his situation, and asking 



124 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

him to effect his release. William sent to the 
count, demanding that he should give his 
prisoner up. All these things, however, only 
tended to elevate and enlarge the count's ideas 
of the value and importance of the prize which 
he had been so fortunate to secure. He per- 
sisted in refusing to give him up without ran- 
som. Finally William paid the ransom, in 
the shape of a large sum of money, and the 
cession, in addition, of a considerable terri- 
tory. Harold and his companions in bondage 
were then delivered to William's messengers, 
and conducted by them in safety to Eouen, 
where William was then residing. 

William received his distinguished guest 
with every possible mark of the most honora- 
ble consideration. He was escorted with great 
parade and ceremony into the palace, lodged in 
the most sumptuous manner, provided with 
every necessary supply, and games, and mili- 
tary spectacles, and feasts and entertainments 
without number, were arranged to celebrate his 
visit. William informed him that he was at 
liberty to return to England whenever he 
pleased, and that his brother and his nephew, 
the hostages that he had come to seek, were at 
his disposal. He, however, urged him not to 
return immediately, but to remain a short time 
in Normandy with his companions. Harold 
accepted the invitation. 

All this exuberance of hospitality had its 



KING HAROLD. 125 

origin, as the reader will readily divine, in the 
duke's joy in finding the only important rival 
likely to appear to contest his claims to the 
English crown so fully in his power, and in 
the hope which he entertained of so managing 
affairs at this visit as to divert Harold's mind 
from the idea of becoming the King of England 
himself, and to induce him to pledge himself 
to act in his, that is, William's, favor. He 
took, therefore, all possible pains to make him 
enjoy his visit in Normandy ; he exhibited to 
him the wealth and the resources of the country 
— conducting him from jjlace to place to visit 
the castles, the abbeys, and the towns — and, 
finally, he proposed that he should accompany 
him on a military expedition into Brittany. 

Harold, pleased with the honors conferred 
upon him, and with the novelty and magnifi- 
cence of the scenes to which he was introduced, 
entered heartily into all these plans, and his 
comi^auions and attendants were no less pleased 
than he. William knighted many of these 
followers of Harold, and made them costly 
presents of horses, and banners, and suits of 
armor, and other such gifts as were calculated 
to captivate the hearts of martial adventurers 
such as they. William soon gained an entire 
ascendency over their minds, and when he in- 
vited them to accompany him on his expedition 
into Brittany, they were all eager to go. 

Brittany was west of Normandy, and on the 



126 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

frontiers of it, so that the expedition was not 
a distant one. Nor was it long protracted. It 
was, in fact, a sort of pleasure excursion, 
William taking his guest across the frontier 
into his neighbor's territory, on a roarauding 
party, just as a nobleman, in modern times, 
would take a party into a forest to hunt. 
William and Harold were on the most intimate 
and friendly terms possible during the contin- 
uance of this campaign. They occupied the 
same tent, and ate at the same table. Harold 
evinced great military talents and much bravery 
in the various adventures which they met with 
in Brittany, and William felt more than ever 
the desirableness of securing his influence on 
his, that is, William's side, or, at least, of 
preventing his becoming an open rival and 
enemy. On their return from Brittany into 
Normandy, he judged that the time had arrived 
for taking his measures. He accordingly re- 
solved to come to an open understanding with 
Harold in respect to his plans, and to seek his 
co-operation. 

He introduced the subject, the historians 
say, one day as they were riding along home- 
ward from their excursion, and had been for 
some time talking familiarly on the way, re- 
lating tales to one another of wars, battles, 
sieges, and hairbreadth escapes, and other 
such adventures as formed, generally, the sub- 
jects of narrative conversation in those days. 



KING HAROLD. 127 

At length William, finding Harold, as he 
judged, in a favorable mood for such a com- 
munication, introduced the subject of the Eng- 
lish realm and the approaching demise of the 
crown. He told him, confidentially, that there 
had been an arrangement between him, Will- 
iam, and King Edward, for some time, that 
Edward was to adopt him as his successor. 
William told Harold, moreover, that he should 
rely a great deal on his co-operation and assis- 
ta,nce in getting peaceable possession of the 
kingdom, and promised to bestow upon him 
the very highest rewards and honors in return 
if he would give him his aid. The only rival 
claimant, William said, was the young child 
Edgar, and he had no friends, no party, no 
military forces, and no means whatever for 
maintaining his pretensions. On the other 
hand, he, William, and Harold, had obviously 
all the power in their own hands, and if they 
could only co-operate together on a common 
understanding, they would be sure to have the 
power and the honors of the English realm 
entirely at their disposal. 

Harold listened to all these suggestions, and 
pretended to be interested and pleased. He 
was, in reality, interested, but he was not 
pleased. He wished to secure the kingdom for 
himself, not merely to obtain a share, however 
large, of its power and its honors as the sub- 
ject of another. He was, however, too wary 



128 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

to evince hia displeasure. On the contrary, 
he assented to the plan, professed to enter into 
it with all his heart, and expressed his readi- 
ness to commence, immediately, the necessary 
preliminary measures for carrying it into exe- 
cution. William was much gratified with the 
successful result of his negotiation, and the 
two chieftains rode home to William's palace 
in Normandy, banded together, apparently, by 
very strong ties. In secret, however, Harold 
was resolving to effect his departure from Nor- 
mandy as soon as possible, and to take imme- 
diate and most effectual measures for securing 
the kingdom of England to himself, without 
any regard to the promises that he had made 
to William. 

Nor must it be supposed that William him- 
self placed any positive reliance on mere prom- 
ises from Harold. He immediately began to 
form plans for binding him to the performance 
of his stipulations, by the modes then com- 
monly employed for securing the fulfillment of 
covenants made among princes. These 
methods were three — intermarriages, the giving 
of hostages, and solemn oaths. 

William proposed two marriages as means 
of strengthening the alliance between himself 
and Harold. Harold was to give to William 
one of his daughters, that William might 
marry her to one of his Norman chieftains. 
This would be, of course, placing her in Will- 



KING HAROLD. 129 

iam's power, and making her a hostage all but 
in name. Harold, however, consented. The 
second marriage proposed was between "Will- 
iam's daughter and Harold himself; but as his 
daughter was a child of only seven years of 
age, it could only be a betrothment that could 
take place at that time. Harold acceded to 
this proposal too, and arrangements were 
made for having the faith of the parties 
pledged to one another in the most solemn 
manner. A great assembly of all the knights, 
nobles, and ladies of the court was convened, 
and the ceremony of pledging the troth between 
the fierce warrior and the gentle and wondering 
child was performed with as much pomp and 
parade as if it had been an actual wedding. 
The name of the girl was Adela. 

In respect to hostages, William determined 
to detain one of those whom Harold, as will be 
recollected, had come into Normandy to recover. 
He told him, therefore, that he might take 
with him his nephew Hacune, but that Ulnoth, 
his brother, should remain, and "William would 
bring him over himself when he came to take 
possession of the kingdom. Harold was ex- 
tremely unwilling to leave his brother thus in 
"William's power; but as he knew very well 
that his being allowed to return to England 
himself would depend upon his not evincing 
any reluctance to giving "W'illiam security, or 
manifesting any other indication that he was 



130 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

not intending to keep his plighted faith, he 
readily consented, and it was thus settled that 
Ulnoth should remain. 

Finally, in order to hold Harold to the ful- 
fillment of his promises by every possible 
form of obligation, William proposed that he 
should take a public and solemn oath, in the 
presence of a large assembly of all the great 
potentates and chieftains of the realm, by 
which he should bind himself, under the most 
awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold 
made no objection to this either. He con- 
sidered himself as, in fact, in duress, and his 
actions as not free. He was in William's 
power, and was influenced in all he did by a 
desire to escape from Normandy, and once 
more recover his liberty. He accordingly de- 
cided, in his own mind, that whatever oaths 
he might take he should afterward consider as 
forced upon him, and consequeutly as null and 
void, and M'as ready, therefore, to take any 
that William might propose. 

The great assembly was accordingly con- 
vened. In the middle of the council hall there 
was placed a great chair of state, which was 
covered with a cloth of gold. Upon this 
cloth, and raised considerably above the seat, 
was the missal, that is, the book of service of 
the Catholic Church, written on parchment and 
splendidly illuminated. The book was open 
at a passage from one of the Evangelists — the 



ICING HAROLD. 131 

Evangelists being a portion of the Holy Scrip- 
tures which was, in those days, supposed to 
invest an oath with the most solemn sanctions. 

Harold felt some slight misgivings as he ad- 
vanced in the midst of such an imposing scene 
as the great assembly of knights and ladies 
presented in the council hall, to repeat his 
promises in the very presence of God, and to 
imprecate the retributive curses of the Al- 
mighty on the violation of them, which he was 
deliberately and fully determined to incur. 
He had, however, gone too far to retreat now. 
He advanced, therefore, to the open missal, 
laid his hand upon the book, and, repeating 
the words which William dictated to him from 
his throne, he took the threefold oath required, 
namely, to aid William to the utmost of his 
power in his attempt to secure the succession 
to the English crown, to marry William's 
daughter Adela as soon as she should arrive at 
a suitable age, and to send over forthwith from 
England his own daughter, that she might be 
espoused to one of William's nobles. 

As soon as the oath was thus taken, William 
caused the missal and the cloth of gold to be 
removed, and there appeared beneath it, on the 
chair of state, a chest, containing the sacred 
relics of the church, which William had 
secretly collected from the abbeys and monas- 
teries of his dominions, and placed in this con- 
cealment, that, without Harold's being con- 



133 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

scious of it, their dreadful sanction might be 
added to that which the Holy Evangelists im- 
posed. These relics were fragments of bones 
set in caskets and frames, and portions of 
blood — relics, as the monks alleged, of apostles 
or of the Savior — and small pieces of wood, 
similarly preserved, which had been portions 
of the cross of Christ or of his thorny crown. 
These things were treasured up with great 
solemnity in the monastic establishments and in 
the churches of these early times, and were re- 
garded with a veneration and awe, of which it 
is almost beyond our power even to conceive. 
Harold trembled when he saw what he had un- 
wittingly done. He was terrified to think how 
much more dreadful was the force of the im- 
precations that he had uttered than he had 
imagined while uttering them. But it was too 
late to undo what he had done. The assembly 
was finally dismissed. William thought he 
had the conscience of his new ally firmly 
secured, and Harold began to prepare for leav- 
ing Normandy. 

He continued on excellent terms with Will- 
iam until his departure. William accompanied 
him to the seashore when the time for his em- 
barkation arrived, and dismissed him at last 
with many farewell honors, and a profusion of 
presents. Harold set sail, and, crossing the 
Channel in safety, he landed in England. 

He commenced immediately an energetic 




William Dictates the Oath to Harold. '5? 



KING HAROLD. 135 

system of measures to strengthen his own 
cause, and prepare the way for his own acces- 
sion. He organized his party, collected arms 
and munitions of war, and did all that he could 
to ingratiate himself with the most powerful 
and wealthy nobles. He sought the favor of 
the king, too, and endeavored to persuade him 
to discard William. The king was now old 
and infirm, and was growing more and more 
inert and gloomy as he advanced in age. His 
mind was occupied altogether in ecclesiastical 
rites and observances, or plunged in a torpid 
and lifeless melancholy, which made him 
averse to giving any thought to the course 
which the affairs of his kingdom were to take 
after he was gone. He did not care whether 
Harold or William took the crown when he 
laid it aside, provided they would allow him 
to die in peace. 

He had had, a few years previous to this 
time, a plan of making a pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem, but had finally made an arrangement 
with the pope, allowing him to build a Cathe- 
dral church, to be dedicated to St. Peter, a 
few miles west of London, in lieu of his pil- 
grimage. There was already a Cathedral 
church or minster in the heart of London 
which was dedicated to St. Paul. The new 
one was afterward often called, to distinguish it 
from the other, the ivest minster, which desig- 
nation, Westminster, became afterward its 
10 



136 WILLIAM THE CONQUERORo 

regular name. It was on this spot, where 
Westminster Abbey now stands, that Edward's 
cburch was to be built. It was just completed 
at the time of which we are speaking, and the 
king was preparing for the dedication of it. 
He summoned an assembly of all the prelates 
and great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the land, 
to convene at London in order to dedicate the 
new cathedral. Before they were ready for 
the service, the king was taken suddenly sick. 
They placed him upon his couch in his palace 
chamber, where he lay, restless, and moaning in 
pain, and repeating incessantly, half in sleep 
and half in delirium, the gloomy and threaten- 
ing texts of Scripture which seemed to haunt 
iiis mind. He was eager to have the dedication 
go on, and they hastened the service in order 
to gratify him by having it jierformed before he 
died. The next day he was obviously failing. 
Harold and his friends were very earnest to 
have the departing monarch declare in Ms 
favor before he died, and their coming and 
going, and their loud discussions, rude sol- 
diers as they were, disturbed his dying hours. 
He sent them word to choose whom they would 
for king, duke or earl, it was indifferent to 
him, and thus expired. 

Harold had made his arrangements so well, 
and had managed so effectually to secure the 
influence of all the powerful nobles of the king- 
dom, that they immediately convened and 



KING HAROLD. 137 

offered him the crown. Edgar was in the court 
of Edward at the time, but he was too young 
to make any effort to advance his claims. He 
was, in fact, a foreigner, though in the Eng- 
lish royal line. He had been brought up on 
the continent of Europe, and could not even 
speak the English tongue. He acquiesced, 
therefore, without complaint, in these proceed- 
ings, and was even present as a consenting 
spectator on the occasion of Harold's corona- 
tion, which ceremony was performed with 
great pomp and parade, at St. Paul's, in Lon- 
don, very soon after King Edward's death. 
Harold rewarded Edgar for his complaisance 
and discretion by conferring upon him the honor 
of knighthood immediately after the corona- 
tion, and in the church where the ceremony 
was performed. He also conferred similar re- 
wards and honors upon many other aspiring 
and ambitious men whom he wished to secure 
to his side. He thus seemed to have secure 
and settled possession of the throne. 

Previously to this time, Harold had married 
a young lady of England, a sister of two very 
powerful noblemen, and the richest heiress in 
the realm. This marriage greatly strengthened 
his influence in England, and helped to pre- 
pare the way for his accession to the supreme 
power. The tidings of it, however, when they 
crossed the Channel and reached the ears of 
William of Normandy, as the act was an open 



138 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



and deliberate violation of one of the covenants 
wLich Harold had made with William, con- 
vinced the latter that none of these covenants 
would be kept, and prepared him to expect all 
that afterward followed. 





CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE PREPARATIONS. 

The messenger who brought "William the tid- 
ings of Harold's accession to the throne was a 
man named Tostig, Harold's brother. Though 
he was Harold's brother, he was still his 
bitterest enemy. Brothers are seldom friends 
in families where there is a crown to be con- 
tended for. There were, of course, no public 
modes of communicating intelligence in those 
days, and Tostig had learned the facts of 
Edward's death and Harold's coronation 
through spies which he had stationed at cer- 
tain points on the coast. He was himself, at 
that time, on the continent. He rode with all 
speed to Kouen to communicate the news to 
William, eager to incite him to commence 
hostilities against his brother. 

When Tostig arrived at Eouen, William was 
in a park which lay in the vicinity of the city, 
trying a new bow that had been recently made 
for him. William was a man of prodigious 
muscular strength, and they gave him the 
credit of being able to use easily a bow which 



140 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

nobody else could bend. A part of tLis credit 
was doubtless due to the etiquette which, in 
royal palaces and grounds, leads all sensible 
courtiers to take good care never to succeed in 
attempts to excel the king. But, notwith- 
standing this consideration, there is no doubt 
that the duke really merited a great portion of 
the commendation that he received for his 
strength and dexterity in the use of the bow. 
It was a weapon in which he took great inter- 
est. A new one had been made for him, of 
great elasticity and strength, and he had gone 
out into his park, with his officers, to try its 
powers, when Tostig arrived. Tostig followed 
him to the place, and there advancing to his 
side, communicated the tidings to him pri- 
vately. 

William was greatly moved by the intelli- 
gence. His arrow dropped upon the ground. 
He gave the bow to an attendant. He stood 
for a time speechless, tying and untying the 
cordon of his cloak in his abstraction. Pres- 
ently he began slowly to move away from the 
place, and to return toward the city. His 
attendants followed him in silence, wondering 
what the exciting tidings could be which had 
produced so sudden and powerful an effect. 

William went into the castle hall, and walked 
to and fro along time,thoughtful,and evidently 
agitated. His attendants waited in silence, 
afraid to speak to him. Humors began at 



THE PREPARATIONS. 141 

length to circulate among them in respect to 
the nature of the intelligence which had been 
received. At length a great officer of state, 
named Fitzosborne, arrived at the castle. As 
he passed through the courtyard and gates, 
the attendants and the people, knowing that he 
possessed in a great degree the confidence of 
his sovereign, asked him what the tidings were 
that had made such an impression. "I know 
nothing certain about it," said he, "but I will 
soon learn." So saying, he advanced toward 
William, and accosted him by saying, "Why 
should you conceal from us your news? It is 
reported in the city that the King of England 
is dead, and that Harold has violated his oaths 
to you, and has seized the kingdom. Is that 
true?" 

William acknowledged that that was the in- 
telligence by which he had been so vexed and 
chagrined. Fitzosborne urged the duke not to 
allow such events to depress or dispirit him. 
"As for the death of Edward," said he, "that 
is an event past and sure, and cannot be re- 
called; but Harold's usurpation and treachery 
admits of a very easy remedy. You have the 
right to the throne, and you have the soldiers 
necessary to enforce that right. Undertake 
the enterprise boldly. 'You will be Sure to 
succeed." 

William revolved the subject in his mind for 
a few days, during which the exasperation and 



142 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

anger which the first receipt of the intelligence 
had produced upon him was succeeded by calm 
but indignant deliberation, in respect to the 
course which he should pursue. He concluded 
to call a great council of state, and to lay the 
case before them — not for the purpose of ob- 
taining their advice, but to call their attention 
to the crisis in a formal and solemn manner, 
and to prepare them to act in concert in the 
subsequent measures to be pursued. The re- 
sult of the deliberations of this council, 
guided, doubtless, by William's own designs, 
was, that the first step should be to send an 
embassy to Harold to demand of him the ful- 
fillment of his promises. 

The messenger was accordingly dispatched. 
He proceeded to Loudon, and laid before 
Harold the communication with which he had 
been intrusted. This communication recounted 
the three promises which Harold had made, 
namely, to send his daughter to Normandy to 
be married to one of William's generals; to 
marry William's daughter himself; and to 
maintain William's claims to the English crown 
on the death of Edward. He was to remind 
Harold, also, of the solemnity with which he 
had bound himself to fulfill these obligations, 
by oaths taken in the presence of the most 
sacred relics of the church, and in the most 
public and deliberate manner. 

Harold replied : 



THE PREPARATIONS. 143 

1. That as to sending over his daughter to be 
married to one of William's generals, he could 
not do it, for his daughter was dead. He 
presumed, he said, that William did not wish 
him to send the corpse. 

2. In respect to marrying William's daugh- 
ter, to whom he had been affianced in Nor- 
mandy, he was sorry to say that that was also 
out of his power, as he could not take a foreign 
wife without the consent of his people, which 
he was confident would never be given ; be- 
sides, he was already married, he said, to a 
Saxon lady of his own dominions. 

3. In regard to the kingdom : it did not de- 
pend upon him, he said, to decide who should 
rule over England as Edward's successor, but 
upon the will of Edward himself, and upon the 
English people. The English barons and 
nobles had decided, with Edward's concurrence, 
that he, Harold, was their legitimate and proper 
sovereign, and that it was not for him to 
controvert their will. However much he might 
be disposed to comply with William's wishes, 
and to keep his promise, it was plain that it 
was out of his power, for in promising him the 
English crown, he had promised what did not 
belong to him to give. 

4. As to his oaths, he said that, notwith- 
standing the secret presence of the sacred relics 
under the cloth of gold, he considered them as 
of no binding force upon his conscience, for he 



/ 



/ 



144 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

was constrained to take tbem as the only means 
of escaping from the duress in which he was 
virtually held in Normandy. Promises, and 
oaths even, when extorted by necessity, were 
null and void. 

The messenger returned to Normandy with 
these replies, and William immediately began 
to prepare for war. 

His first measure was to call a council of his 
most confidential friends and advisers, and to 
lay the subject before them. They cordially 
approved of the plan of an invasion of England, 
and promised to co-operate in the accomplish- 
ment of it to the utmost of their power. 

The next step was to call a general council of 
all the chieftains and nobles of the land, and 
also the notables, as they were called, or prin- 
cipal oflScers and municipal authorities of the 
toivns. The main point of interest for the 
consideration of this assembly was, whether 
the country would submit to the necessary tax- 
ation for raising the requisite funds. William 
had ample power, as duke, to decide upon the 
invasion and to undertake it. He could also, 
without much difficulty, raise the necessary 
number of men ; for every baron in his realm 
was bound, by the feudal conditions on which 
he held his land, to furnish his quota of men 
for any military enterprise in which his sover- 
eign might see fit to engage. But for so dis- 
tant and vast an undertaking as this, William 



THE PREPARATIONS. 145 

needed a much larger supply of funds than 
were usually required in the wars of those 
days. For raising such large supplies, the 
political institutions of the Middle Ages had 
not made any adequate provision. Govern- 
ments then had no power of taxation, like that 
so freely exercised in modern times ; and even 
now, taxes in France and England take the 
form of grants from the people to the kings. 
And as to the contrivance, so exceedingly in- 
genious, by which inexhaustible resources are 
opened to governments at the present day — ■ 
that is, the plan of borrowing the money, and 
leaving posterity to pay or repudiate the debt, 
as they please, no minister of finance had, in 
William's day, been brilliant enough to dis- 
cover it. Thus each ruler had to rely, then, 
mainly on the rents and income from his own 
lands, and other private resources, for the com- 
paratively small amount of money that he 
needed in his brief campaigns. But now "Will- 
iam perceived that ships must be built and 
equipped, and great stores of provisions ac- 
cumulated, and arms and munitions of war pro- 
vided, all which would require a considerable 
outlay ; and how was this money to be obtained ? 
The general assembly which he convened 
were greatly distracted by the discussion of the 
question. The quiet and peaceful citizens who 
inhabited the towns, the artisans and trades- 
men, who wished for nothing but to be allowed 



146 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

to go on in their industrial pursuits in peace, 
were opposed to the whole project. They 
thought it unreasonable and absurd that they 
should be required to contribute from their 
earnings to enable their lord and master to go 
off on so distant and desperate an undertaking, 
from which, even if successful, they could de- 
rive no benefit whatever. Many of the barons, 
too, were opposed to the scheme. They 
thought it very likely to end in disaster and 
defeat ; and they denied that their feudal obli- 
gation to furnish men for their sovereign's 
wars was binding to the extent of requiring 
them to go out of the country, and beyond the 
sea, to prosecute his claims to the throne of 
another kingdom. 

Others, on the other hand, among the mem- 
bers of William's assembly, were strongly dis- 
l)Osed to favor the plan. They were more 
ardent or more courageous than the rest, or 
perhaps their position and circumstances were 
such that they had more to hojje from the suc- 
cess of the enterprise than they, or less to fear 
from its failure. Thus there was great diver- 
sity of opinion ; and as the parliamentary sys- 
tem of rules, by which a body of turbulent 
men, in modern times, are kept in some sem- 
blance of organization and order during a de- 
bate, had not then been developed, the meeting 
of these Norman deliberators was, for a time, 
a scene of uproar and confusion. The mem- 



THE PREPARATIONS. 147 

bers gathered in groups, each speaker getting 
around him as many as he could obtain to 
listen to his harangue; the more quiet and 
passive portion of the assembly moving to and 
fro, from group to group, as they were attracted 
by the earnestness and eloquence of the different 
speakers, or by their approval of the sentiments 
which they heard them expressing. The scene, 
in fact, was like that presented in exciting 
times by a political caucus in America, before 
it is called to order by the chairman. 

Fitzosborne, the confidential friend and 
counselor, who has already been mentioned as 
the one who ventured to accost the duke at the 
time when the tidings of Edward's death and of 
Harold's accession first reached him, now 
seeing that anything like definite and harmo- 
nious action on the part of this tumultuous 
assembly was out of the question, went to the 
duke, and proposed to him to give up the as- 
sembly as such, and make the best terms and 
arrangements that he could with the constit- 
uent elements of it, individually and severally. 
He would himself, he said, furnish forty ships, 
manned, equipped, and provisioned; and he 
recommended to the duke to call each of the 
others into his presence, and ask them what 
they were individually willing to do. The 
duke adopted this plan, and it was wonderfully 
successful. Those who were first invited made 
large offers, and their offers were immediately 



148 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

registered in form by Ihe projDer officers. Each 
one who followed was emulous of the example 
of those who had preceded him, and desirous 
of evincing as much zeal and generosity as 
they. Then, besides, the duke received these 
vassals with so much condescension and ur- 
banity, and treated them with so much con- 
sideration and respect, as greatly to flatter 
their vanity, and raise them in their own esti- 
mation, by exalting their ideas of the import- 
ance of the services which they could render in 
carrying so vast an enterprise to a successful 
result. In a word, the tide turned like a flood 
in favor of granting liberal supplies. The 
nobles and knights promised freely men, 
money, ships, arms, provisions — everything, 
in short, that was required ; and when the 
work of receiving and registering the offers was 
completed, and the officers summed up the ag- 
gregate amount, William found, to his extreme 
satisfaction, that his wants were abundantly 
supplied. 

There was another very important point, 
which William adopted immediate measures to 
secure, and that was obtaining the pope's ap- 
proval of his intended expedition. The moral 
influence of having the Eoman pontiff on his 
side, would, he knew, be of incalculable advan- 
tage to him. He sent an embassage, accord- 
ingly, to Eome, to lay the whole subject before 
his holiness, and to pray that the pope would 



THE PREPARATIONS. 149 

declare that he was justly entitled to the Eng- 
lish crown, and authorize him to proceed and 
take possession of it by force of arms. Lan- 
franc was the messenger whom he employed — • 
the same Lanfranc who had been so successful, 
some years before, in the negotiations at Rome 
connected with the confirmation of William 
and Matilda's marriage. 

Lanfranc was equally successful now. The 
pope, after examining William's claims, pro- 
nounced them valid. Ho decided that William 
was entitled to the rank and honors of King of 
England. He caused a formal diploma to be 
made out to this effect. The diploma was 
elegantly executed, signed with the cross, ac- 
cording to the pontifical custom, and sealed 
with a round leaden seal.* 

It was, in fact, very natural that the Eoman 
authorities should take a favorable view of 
William's enterprise, and feel an interest in its 
success, as it was undoubtedly for the interest 
of the church that William, rather than Harold, 
should reign over England, as the accession of 
William would bring the English realm far 
more fully under the influence of the Eoman 
Church. William had always been very sub- 
missive to the pontifical authority, as was 
shown in his conduct in respect to the question 

*The Latin name for snch a seal was bulla. It is on 
a<;count of this sort of seal, which is customarily affixed to 
them, that papal edicts have received the name of bulls. 



150 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

of liis marriage. He himself, and also Ma^ 
tilda his wife, had always taken a warm in- 
terest in the welfare and prosperity of the 
abbeys, the monasteries, the churches, and the 
other religious establishments of the times. 
Then the very circumstance that he sent his 
ambassador to Rome to submit his claims to 
the pontiff's adjudication, while Harold did 
not do so, indicated a greater deference for 
the authority of the church, and made it prob- 
able that he would be a far more obedient and 
submissive son of the church, in his manner of 
ruling his realm, if he should succeed in 
gaining possession of it, than Harold his rival. 
The pope and his counselors at Eome thought 
it proper to take all these things into the account 
in deciding between William and Harold, as 
they honestly believed, without doubt, that it 
was their first and highest duty to exalt and 
aggrandize, by every possible means, the 
spiritual authority of the sacred institution 
over which they were called to preside. 

The pope and his cardinals, accordingly, 
espoused William's cause very warmly. In 
addition to the diploma which gave William 
formal authority to take possession of the Eng- 
lish crown, the pope sent him a banner and a 
ring. The banner was of costly and elegant 
workmanship ; its value, however, did not con- 
sist in its elegance or its cost, but in a solemn 
benediction which his holiness pronounced over 



THE PREPARATIONS. 151 

it, by which it was rendered sacred and in- 
violable. The banner, thus blessed, was for- 
warded to William by Lanfranc with great 
care. 

It was accompanied by the ring. The ring 
was of gold, and it contained a diamond of 
great value. The gold and the diamond both, 
however, served only as settings to preserve 
and honor something of far greater value than 
they. This choice treasure was a hair from 
the head of the Apostle Peter ! a sacred relic 
of miraculous virtue and of inestimable value. 

When the edict with its leaden seal, and the 
banner and the ring arrived in Normandy, they 
produced a great and universal excitement. 
To have bestowed upon the enterprise thus em- 
phatically the solemn sanction of the great 
spiritual head of the church, to whom the 
great mass of the people looked up with an awe 
and a reverence almost divine, was to seal in- 
dissolubly the rightfulness of the enterprise, 
and to insure its success. There was thence- 
forward no difficulty in procuring men or 
means. Everybody was eager to share in the 
glory, and to obtain the rewards of an enter- 
prise thus commended by an authority duly 
commissioned to express, in all such cases, the 
judgment of Heaven. 

Finding that the current was thus fairly set- 
ting in his favor, William 3ent proclamations 
into all the countries surrounding Normandy, 
11 



152 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

inviting knights, and soldiers, and adventurers 
of every degree to join him in liis projected 
enterprise. These proclaroations awakened uni- 
versal attention. Great numbers of adventu- 
rous men determined to enter William's service. 
Horses, arms, and accouterments were every- 
where in great demand. The invasion of Eng- 
land and the question of joining it were the 
universal topics of conversation. The roads 
were covered with knights and soldierS; some 
on horseback and alone, others in bauds, large 
or small, all proceeding to Normandy to tender 
their services. William received them all, and 
made liberal jn-omises to bestow rewards and 
honors upon them in England, in the event of 
his success. To some he offered pay in 
money ; to others, booty ; to others, office and 
power. Every one had his price. Even the 
priests and dignitaries of the church shared 
the general enthusiasm. One of them fur- 
nished a ship and twenty armed men, under an 
agreement to be appointed bishop of a certain 
valuable English diocese when William should 
be established on his throne. 

While all these movements were going on in 
the interior of the country, all the seaports 
and towns along the coast of Normandy pre- 
sented a very busy scene of naval preparation. 
Naval architects were employed in great num- 
bers in building and fitting out vessels. Some 
were constructed and furnished for the trans- 




Wilham face p iS 

Statue of William the Conqueror at Falaise. 



THE PREPARATIONS. 153 

portation of men, others for conveying pro- 
visions and munitions of war; and lighters and 
boats were built for ascending the rivers, and 
for aiding in landing troops upon shelving 
shores. Smiths and armorers were occupied 
incessantly in manufacturing spears, and 
swords, and coats of mail; while vast numbers 
of laboring men and beasts of burden were em- 
ployed in conveying arms and materials to and 
from the manufactories to the ships, and from 
one point of embarkation to another. 

As soon as William had put all these busy 
agencies tlnis in successful operation, he con- 
sidered that there was one more point which it 
was necessary for him to secure before finally 
embarking, and that was the co-operation and 
aid of the French king, whose name at this 
time was Philip. In his character of Duke of 
Normandy the King of France was his liege 
lord, and he was bound to act, in some degree, 
under an acknowledgment of his superior 
authority. In his new capacity, that is, as 
King of England, or, rather, as heir to the 
English kingdom, he was, of course, wholly 
independent of Philip, and, conseqently, not 
bound by any feudal oliligation to look to him at 
all. He thought it most prudent, however, 
to attempt, at least, to conciliate Philip's 
favor, and, accordingly, leaving his oflScers 
and his workmen to go on with the work of 
organizing his army and of building and equip- 



164 WIIXIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

ping the fleet, he set off, himself, on an expe- 
dition to the court of the French king. He 
thought it safer to undertake this delicate mis- 
sion himself, rather than to intrust it to an 
ambassador or deputy. 

He found Philip at his palace of St. Ger- 
main's, which was situated at a short distance 
from Paris. The duke assumed, in his inter- 
view with the king, a very respectful and def- 
erential air and manner. Philip was a very 
young man, though haughty and vain. Will- 
iam was very much his superior, not only in 
age and experience, but in talents and character 
and in personal renown. Still, he approached 
the monarch with all the respectful observances 
due from a vassal to his sovereign, made known 
his plans, and asked for Philip's approbation 
and aid. He was willing, he said, in case 
that aid was afforded him, to hold his king- 
dom of England, as he had done the duchy of 
Normandy, as a dependency of the French 
crown. 

Philip seemed not at all disposed to look 
upon the project with favor. He asked Will- 
iam who was going to take care of his duchy 
while he was running off after a kingdom. 
William replied, at first, that that was a sub- 
ject which he did not think his neighbors need 
concern themselves about. Then thinking, on 
reflection, that a more respectful answer would 
be more politic, under the circumstances of the 



THE PREPARATIONS. 155 

case, he added that he was providentially 
blessed with a prudent wife and loving sub- 
jects, and that he thought he might safely 
leave his domestic affairs in their hands until 
he should return. Philip still opposed the 
plan. It was Quixotic, he said, and danger- 
ous. He strongly advised William to abandon 
the scheme, and be content with his present 
possessions. Such desj^erate schemes of ambi- 
tion as those he was contemplating would only 
involve him in ruin. 

Before absolutely deciding the case, how- 
ever, Philip called a council of his great nobles 
and officers of state, and laid William's pro- 
posals before them. The result of their delib- 
erations was to confirm Philip in his first 
decision. They said that the rendering to 
William the aid which he desired would in- 
volve great expense, and be attended with great 
danger; and as to William's promises to hold 
England as a vassal of the King of France, 
they had no faith in the performance of them. 
It had been very difficult, they said, for many 
years, for the kings of France to maintain any 
effectual authority over the dukes of Nor- 
mandy, and when once master of so distant and 
powerful a realm as England, all control over 
them would be sundered forever. 

Philip then gave William his final answer in 
accordance with these counsels. The answer 
was received, on William's part, with strong 



156 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

feelings of disappointment and displeasure. 
Philip conducted the duke to his retinue when 
the hour of departure arrived, in order to 
soothe, as far as possible, his irritated feel- 
ings, by dismissing him from his court with 
marks of his honorable consideration and re- 
gard. William, however, was not in a mood 
to be pleased. He told Philip, on taking leave 
of him, that he was losing the most powerful 
vassal that any lord sovereign ever had, by the 
course which he had decided to pursue. "I 
would have held the whole realm of England as 
a part of your dominions, acknowledging you 
as sovereign over all, if you had consented to 
render me your aid, but I will not do it since 
you refuse. I shall feel bound to repay only 
those who assist me." 

William returned to Normandy, where all 
the preparations for the expedition had been 
going on with great vigor during his absence, 
and proceeded to make arrangements for the 
last great measure which it was necessary to 
take previous to his departure ; that was, the 
regular constitution of a government to rule in 
Normandy while he should be gone. He de- 
termined to leave the supreme power in the 
hands of his wife Matilda, appointing, at the 
same time, a number of civil and military 
officers as a council of regency, who were to 
assist her in her deliberations by giving her 
information and advice, and to manage, under 



THE PREPARATIONS. 15? 

her direction, the different departments of the 
government. Her title was "Duchess Kegent, " 
and she was installed into her office in a public 
and solemn manner, at a great assembly of the 
estates of the realm. At the close of the cere- 
monies, after William had given Matilda his 
charge, he closed his address by adding, "And 
do not let us fail to enjoy the benefit of your 
prayers, and those of all the ladies of your 
court, that the blessing of God may attend us, 
and secure the success of our expedition." 

We are not necessarily to suppose, as we 
might at first be strongly inclined to do, that 
there was any special hypocrisy and pretense 
in William's thus professing to rely on the pro- 
tection of Heaven in the personal and political 
dangers which he was about to incur. It is 
probable that he honestly believed that the 
inheritance of the English crown was his right, 
and, that being the case, that a vigorous and 
manly effort to enforce his right was a solemn 
duty. In the present age of the world, now 
that there are so many countries in which in- 
telligence, industry, and love of order are so 
extensively diffused that the mass of the com- 
munity are capable of organizing and adminis- 
tering a government themselves, republicans 
are apt to look upon hereditary sovereigns as 
despots, ruling only for the purpose of promot- 
ing their own aggrandizement, and the ends of 
an unholy and selfish ambition. That there 



158 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

have been a great many such despots no one 
can deny ; but then, on the other hand, there 
have been raany others who have acted, in a 
greater or less degree, under the influence of 
principles of duty in their political career. 
They have honestly believed that the vast power 
with which, in coming forward into life, they 
have found themselves invested, without, in 
most cases, any agencj^ of their own, as &, 
trust imposed upon them by divine Providence, 
which could not innocently be laid aside; that 
on them devolved the protection of the com- 
munities over which they ruled from external 
hostility, and the preservation of peace and 
order within, and the promotion of the general 
industry and welfare, as an imperious and 
solemn duty ; and they have devoted their lives 
to the performance of this duty, with the usual 
mixture, it is true, of ambition and selfishness, 
but still, after all, with as much conscientious- 
ness and honesty as the mass of men in the 
humbler walks of life evince in performing 
theirs. William of Normandy appears to have 
been one of this latter class; and in obeying 
the dictates of his ambition in seeking to gain 
possession of the English crown, he no doubt 
considered himself as fulfilling the obligations 
of duty too. 

However this may be, he went on with his 
preparations in the most vigorous and prosper- 
ous manner. The whole country were enthu- 



THE PREPARATIONS. 



159 



siastic in the cause ; and their belief that the 
enterprise about to be undertaken had unques- 
tionably secured the favor of Heaven, was 
confirmed by an extraordinary phenomenon 
which occurred just before the armament was 
ready to set sail. A comet appeared in the 




King Canute. 

sky, which, as close observers declared, had a 
double tail. It was universally agreed that 
this portended that England and Normandy 
were about to be combined, and to form a 
double kingdom, which should exhibit to all 
jnankind a wonderful spectacle of splendor. 




CHAPTEE IX. 

CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 

The place for the final assembling of the 
fleet which was to convey the expedition across 
the Channel, was the mouth of a small river 
called the Dive, which will be seen upon the 
annexed map, flowing from the neighborhood 
of the castle of Falaise northward into the sea. 
The grand gathering took place in the begin- 
ning of the month of September, in the year 
1066. This date, which marks the era of the 
Norman conquest, is one of the dates which 
students of history fix indelibly in the memory. 

The gathering of the fleet in the estuary of 
the Dive, and the assembling of the troops on 
the beach along its shores, formed a very grand 
and imposing spectacle. The fleets of galleys, 
ships, boats, and barges covering the surface 
of the water — the long lines of tents under the 
clifl's on the land — the horsemen, splendidly 
mounted, and glittering with steel — the groups 
of soldiers, all busily engaged in transporting 
provisions and stores to and fro, or making the 
preliminary arrangements for the embarkation 
— the thousands of spectators, who came and 

160 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 



Ifil 



went incessantly, and the dnte himself, gor- 
geously dressed, and mounted on his warhorse, 
with the guards and officers that attended him 
— these, and the various other elements of mar- 
tial parade and display usually witnessed on 




such occasions, conspired to produce a very 
gay and brilliant, as well as magnificent scene. 
Of course, the assembling of so large a force 
of men and of vessels, and the various prepara- 
tions for the embarkation, consumed some 
time, and when at length all was ready — which 
was early in September — the equinoctial gales 



1G2 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

earne on, and it was found impossible to leave 
the port. There was, in fact, a continuance of 
heavy winds and seas, and stormy skies, for 
several weeks. Short intervals, from time to 
time, occurred, when the clouds would break 
away, and the sun appear; but these intervals 
did not liberate the fleet from its confinement, 
for they were not long enough in duration to 
allow the sea to go down. The surf continued 
to come rolling and thundering in upon the 
shore, and over the sand-bars at the mouth of 
the river, making destruction the almost inev- 
itable destiny of any ship which should under- 
take to brave its fury. The state of the skies 
gradually robbed the scene of the gay and 
brilliant colors which firrjt it wore. The ves- 
sels furled their sails, and drew in their ban- 
ners, and rode at anchor, presenting their heads 
doggedly to the storm. The men on the shore 
sought shelter in their tents. The spectators 
retired to their homes, while the duke and his 
officers watched the scudding clouds in the 
sky, day after day, with great and increasing 
anxiety. 

In fact, William had very serious cause for 
apprehension in respect to the effect which this 
long-continued storm was to have on the success 
of his enterprise. The delay was a very seri- 
ous consideration in itself, for the winter 
would soon be drawing near. In one month 
more it would seem to be out of the question 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 163 

for such a vast arraamenfc to cross the channel 
at all. Then, when men are embarking in 
such dark and hazardous undertakings as that 
in which William was now engaged, their 
spirits and their energy rise and sink in great 
fluctuations, under the influence of very slight 
and inadequate causes ; and nothing has greater 
influence over them at such times than the 
aspect of the skies. William found that the 
ardor and enthusiasm of his army were fast 
disappearing under theefi'ectsof chilling winds 
and driving rain. The feelings of discontent 
and depression which the frowning expression 
of the heavens awakened in their minds, were 
deepened and spread by the influence of sym- 
pathy. The men had nothing to do, during 
the long and dreary hours of the day, but to 
anticipate hardships and dangers, and to enter- 
tain one another, as they watched the clouds 
driving along the clifi's, and the rolling of the 
surges in the ofiing, with anticipations of ship- 
wrecks, battles, and defeats, and all the other 
gloomy forebodings which haunt the imagina- 
tion of a discouraged and discontented soldier. 
Nor were these ideas of wrecks and destruc- 
tion wholly imaginary. Although the body of 
the fleet remained in the river, where it was 
sheltered from the winds, yet there were many 
cases of single ships that were from time to 
time exposed to them. These were detached 
vessels coming in late to the rendezvous, or 



164 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

small squadrons sent out to some neighboring 
port under some necessity connected with the 
preparations, or strong galleys, whose com- 
manders, more bold than the rest, were willing, 
in cases not of absolute necessity, to brave the 
danger. Many of these vessels were wrecked. 
The fragments of them, with the bodies of the 
drowned mariners, were driven to the shore. 
The ghastly spectacles presented by these dead 
bodies, swollen and mangled, and half buried 
in the sand, as if the sea had been endeavoring 
to hide the mischief it had done, shocked and 
terrified the spectators who saw them. Will- 
iam gave orders to have all these bodies 
gathered up and interred secretly, as fast as 
they were found ; still, exaggerated rumors of 
the number and magnitude of these disasters 
were circulated in the camp, and the discontent 
and apprehension grew every day more and 
more alarming. 

"William resolved that he must put to sea at 
the verj' first possible opportunity. The 
favorable occasion was not long wanting. The 
wind changed. The storm appeared to cease. 
A breeze sprang up from the south, which 
headed back the surges from the French shore. 
William gave orders to embark. The tents 
were struck. The baggage of the soldiers was 
sent on board the transport vessels. The men 
themselves, crowded into great flat-bottomed 
boats, passed in masses to the ships from the 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 165 

shore. The spectators reappeared, and covered 
the cliffs and promontories near, to witness the 
final scene. The sails were hoisted, and the 
vast armament moved out upon the sea. 

The appearances of a favorable change in the 
weather proved fallacious after all, for the 
clouds and storm returned, and after being 
driven, in apprehension and danger, about a 
hundred miles to the northeast along the coast, 
the fleet was compelled to seek refuge again in 
a harbor. The port which received them was 
St. Valery, near Dieppe. The duke was 
greatl}^ disappointed at being obliged thus 
again to take the land. Still, the attempt to 
advance had not been a labor wholly lost; for 
as the French coast here trends to the north- 
ward, they had been gradually narrowing the 
channel as they proceeded, and were, in fact, 
so far on the way toward the English shores. 
Then there were, besides, some reasons for 
touching here, before the final departure, to 
receive some last reinforcements and supplies. 
William had also one more opportunity of com- 
municating with his capital and with Matilda. 
These delays, disastrous as they seemed to 
be, and ominous of evil, were nevertheless at- 
tended with one good effect, of which, however, 
William at the time was not aware. They led 
Harold, in England, to imagine that the enter- 
prise was abandoned, and so put him off his 
guard. There were in those days, as has 
12 



166 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

already been remarked, no regular and public 
modes of intercommunication, by -which intel- 
ligence of important movements and events was 
spread everywhere, as now, with promptness 
and certainty. Governments were obliged, ac- 
cordingly, to rely for information, in respect to 
what their enemies were doing, on rumors, or 
on the reports of spies. Eiumors had gone to 
England in August that "William was meditat- 
ing an invasion, and Harold had made some 
extensive preparations to meet and oppose him ; 
but, finding that he did not come — that week 
after week of September passed away, and no 
signs of an enemy appeared, and gaining no 
certain information of the causes of the delay, 
he concluded that the enterprise was abandoned, 
or else, perhaps, postjDoued to the ensuing 
spring. Accordingly, as the winter was com- 
ing on, he deemed it best to commence his 
preparations for sending his troops to their 
winter quarters. He disbanded some of them, 
and sent others away, distributing them in 
various castles and fortified towns, where they 
would be sheltered from the rigors of the sea- 
son, and saved from the exposures and hard- 
ships of the camp, and yet, at the same time, 
remain within reach of a summons in case of 
any sudden emergency which might call for 
them. They were soon summoned, though 
not, in the first instance, to meet William, as 
will presently appear. 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 167 

While adopting these measures, however, 
which he thought the comfort and safety of his 
army required, Harold did not relax his vigi- 
lance in watching, as well as he could, the 
designs and movements of his enemy. He 
kept his secret agents on the southern coast, 
ordering them to observe closely everything 
that transpired, and to gather and send to him 
every item of intelligence which should find its 
way by any means across the Channel. Of 
course, William would do all in his power to 
intercept and cut off all communication, and 
he was, at this time, very much aided in these 
efforts by the prevalence of the storms, which 
made it almost impossible for the fishing and 
trading vessels of the coast to venture out to 
sea, or attempt to cross the Channel. The 
agents of Harold, therefore, on the southern 
coast of England, found that they could obtain 
but very little information. 

At length the king, unAvilling to remain any 
longer so entirely in the dark, resolved on 
sending some messengers across the sea into 
Normandy itself, to learn positively what the 
true state of the case might be. Messengers 
going thus secretly into the enemy's territory, 
or into the enemy's camp, become, by so 
doing, in martial law, spies, and incur, if they 
are taken, the penalty of death. The under- 
taking, therefore, is extremely hazardous ; and 
as the death which is inflicted in cases of de- 



168 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

tection is an ignominious one — spies being 
hung, not shot — most men are very averse to 
encountering the danger. Still, desperate 
characters are always to be found in camps and 
armies, who are ready to undertake it on being 
promised very extraordinary pay. 

Harold's spies contrived to make their way 
across the channel, i)robably'at some point far 
to the east of Normandy, where the passage is 
narrow. They then came along the shore, 
disguised as peasants of the country, and they 
arrived at St. Valery while William's fleets 
were there. Here they began to make their 
observations, scrutinizing everything with 
close attention and care, and yet studiously 
endeavoring to conceal their interest in what 
thej' saw. Notwithstanding all their vigilance, 
however, they were discovered, proved to be 
spies, and taken before William to receive 
their sentence. 

Instead of condemning them to death, which 
they undoubtedly supposed would be their 
inevitable fate, William ordered them to be set 
at liberty. "Go back," said he, "to King 
Harold, and tell him he might have saved him- 
self the expense of sending spies into Nor- 
mandy to learn what I am preparing for him. 
He will soon know by other means — much 
sooner, in fact, than he imagines. Go and tell 
him from me that he may put himself, if he 
pleases, in the safest place he can find in all 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 169 

his dominions, and if he does not find my 
hand upon him before the year is out, he never 
need fear me again as long as he lives." 

Nor was this expression of confidence in the 
success of the measures which he was taking a 
mere empty boast. William knew the power 
of Harold, and he knew his own. The enter- 
prise in which he had embarked was not a rash 
adventure. It was a cool, deliberate, well- 
considered plan. It appeared doubtful and 
dangerous in the eyes of mankind, for to mere 
superficial observers it seemed simply an ag- 
gressive war waged by a duke of Normandy, 
the ruler of a comparatively small and insignif- 
icant province, against a king of England, the 
monarch of one of the greatest and most power- 
ful realms in the world. William, on the other 
hand, regarded it as an effort on the part of 
the rightful heir to a throne to dispossess a 
usurper. He felt confident of having the sym- 
pathy and co-operation of a great part of the 
community, even in England, the moment he 
could show them that he was able to maintain 
his rights ; and that he could show them that, 
by a very decisive demonstration, was evident, 
visibly, before him, in the vast fleet which was 
riding at anchor in the harbor, and in the long 
lines of tents, filled with soldiery, which 
covered the land. 

On one occasion, when some of his officers 
were expressing apprehensions of Harold's 



170 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

power, and their fears in respect to their being 
able successfully to coi^e with it, William re- 
plied that the more formidable Harold's power 
should prove to be, the better he should be 
pleased, as the glory would be all the greater 
for them in having overcome it. "I have no 
objection, "said he, "that you should entertain 
exalted ideas of his strength, though I wonder 
a little that you do not better appreciate our 
own. I need be under no concern lest he, at 
such a distance, should learn too much, by his 
spies, about the force which I am bringing 
against him, when you, who are so near me, 
seem to know so little about it. But do not 
give yourselves any concern. Trust to the 
justice of your cause and to my foresight. 
Perform your parts like men, and you will find 
that the result which I feel sure of, and you 
hope for, will certainly' be attained." 

The storm at length entirely cleared away, 
and the army and the fleet commenced their 
preparations for the final departure. In the 
midst of this closing scene, the attention of all 
the vast crowds assembled on board the ships 
and on the chores was one morning attracted 
by a beautiful ship which came sailing into 
the harbor. It proved to be a large and splen- 
did vessel which the Duchess Matilda had 
built, at her own expense, and was now bringing 
in, to offer to her husband as her parting gift. 
She was herself on board, with her officers and 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 171 

attendants, having come to witness her hus- 
band's departure, and to bid him farewelh 
Her arrival, of course, under such circum- 
stances, produced universal excitement and 
enthusiasm. The ships in harbor and the 
shores resounded with acclamations as the new 
arrival came gallantly in. 

Matilda's vessel was finely built and splen- 
didly decorated. The sails were of different 
colors, which gave it a very gay appearance. 
Upon them were painted, in various places, 
the three lions, which was the device of the 
Norman ensign. At the bows of the ship was 
an effigy, or figurehead, representing William 
and Matilda's second son shooting with a bow. 
This was the accomplishment which, of all 
others, his father took most interest in seeing 
his little son acquire. The arrow was drawn 
nearly to its head, indicating great strength in 
the little arms which were guiding it, and it 
was just ready to fly. The name of this vessel 
was the Mira. William made it his flagship. 
He hoisted upon its masthead the consecrated 
banner which had been sent to him from Eome, 
and went on board accompanied by his officers 
and guards, and with great ceremony and 
parade. 

At length the squadron was ready to put to 
sea. At a given signal the sails were hoisted, 
and the whole fleet began to move slowly out 
of the harbor. There were four hundred ships 



172 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

of large size, if "we may believe the chronicles 
of the times, and more than a thousand trans- 
ports. The decks of all these vessels were 
covered with men; banners were streaming 
from every mast and spar; and every salient 
point of the shore was crowded with spectators. 
The sea was calm, the air serene, and the 
mighty cloud of canvas w-hich whitened the 
surface of the water moved slowly on over the 
gentle swell of the waves, forming a spectacle 
which, as a picture merely for the eye, was 
magnificent and grand, and, when regarded in 
connection with the vast results to the human 
race which were to flow from the success of the 
euterprise, must have been considered sublime. 
The splendidly decorated ship which Matilda 
had presented to her husband proved itself, on 
trial, to be something more than a mere toy. 
It led the van at the commencement, of course; 
and as all eyes watched its progress it soon 
became evident that it was slowly gaining 
upon the rest of the squadron, so as continually 
to increase its distance from those that were 
following it. "William, pleased with the success 
of its performance, ordered the sailing master 
to keep on, without regard to those who were 
behind; and thus it happened that when night 
came on the fleet was at very considerable dis- 
tance in rear of the flagship. Of course, under 
these circumstances, the fleet disappeared from 
Bight when the sun went down, but all expected 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 173 

that it would come into view again in the 
morning. When the morning came, however, 
to the surprise and disappointment of evert 
one on board the flagship, no signs of the fleet 
were to be seen. The seamen, and the oflicers 
on the deck, gazed long and intently into the 
southern horizon as the increasing light of the 
morning brought it gradually into view, but 
there was not a speck to break its smooth and 
even line. 

They felt anxious and uneasy, but William 
Beemed to experience no concern. He ordered 
the sails to be furled, and then sent a man to 
the masthead to look out there. Nothing was 
to be seen. William, still apparently uncon- 
cerned, ordered breakfast to be prepared in a 
very sumptuous manner, loading the tables 
with wine and other delicacies, that the minds 
of all on board might be cheered by the exhil- 
arating influence of a feast. At length the 
lookout was sent to the masthead again. 
**What do you see now?" said William. "I 
see," said the man, gazing very intently all 
the while toward the south, "four very small 
specks just in the horizon." The intense 
interest which this announcement awakened on 
the deck was soon at the same time heightened 
and relieved by the cry, "I can see more and 
more — they are the ships — yes, the whole 
squadron is coming into view." 

The advancing fleet soon came up with the 



174 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

Mira, when the latter spread her sails again, 
and all moved slowly on together toward the 
coast of Eugland. 

The ships had directed their course so much 
to the eastward, that when they made the land 
thay were not very far from the Straits of 
Dover. As they drew near to the English 
shore, they watched very narrowly for the ap- 
pearance of Harold's cruisers, which they 
naturally expected would have been stationed 
at various points, to guard the coast; but none 
were to be seen. There had been such cruisers, 
and there still were such, off the other har- 
bors; but it happened, very fortunately for 
William, that those which had been stationed 
to guard this part of the island had been with- 
drawn a few days before, on account of their 
provisions being exhausted. Thus, when 
William's fleet arrived, there was no enemy to 
oppose their landing. There was a large and 
open bay, called the Bay of Pevensey, which 
lay smiling before them, extending its arms as 
if invitiug them in. The fleet advanced to 
within the proper distance from the land, and 
there the seamen cast their anchors, and all 
began to prepare for the work of disembarka- 
tion. 

A strong body of soldiery is of course landed 
first on such occasious. In this iustance the 
archers, William's favorite corps, were selected 
to take the lead. William accompanied them. 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 175 

In his eagerness to get to the shore, as he 
leaped from the boat, his foot slipfjed, and he 
fell. The officers and men around him would 
have considered this an evil omen ; but he had 
presence of mind enough to extend his arms 
and grasp the ground, pretending that his 
prostration was designed, and saying at the 
same time, "Thus I seize this land; from this 
moment it is mine." As he arose, one of his 
officers ran to a neighboring hut which stood 
near by upon the shore, and breaking off a 
little of the thatch, carried it to William, and 
putting it into his hand, said that thus he 
gave him seizin of his new possessions. This 
was a customary form, in those times, of put- 
ting a new owner into possession of lands which 
he had purchased or acquired in any other 
way. The new proprietor would repair to the 
ground, where the party, whose province it 
was to deliver the property, would detach 
something from it, such as a piece of turf from 
a bank, or a little of the thatch from a cottage, 
and offering it to him, would say, "Thus I 
deliver thee seizin/' ihat is, possession, "of 
this land." This ceremony was necessary to 
complete the conveyance of the estate. 

The soldiers, as soon as they were landed, 
began immediately to form an encampment, 
and to make such military arrangements as 
were necessary to guard against an attack, or 
the sudden appearance of an enemy. While 



176 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

this was going on, the boats continued to pass 
to and fro, accomplishing, as fast as possible, 
the work of disembarkation. In addition to 
those regularly attached to the army, there was 
a vast company of workmen of all kinds, engi- 
neers, pioneers, carpenters, masons, and 
laborers, to be landed; and there were three 
towers, or rather forts, built of timber, which 
had been framed and fashioned in Normandy, 
ready to be put upon arriving: these had now to 
be landed, piece by piece, on the strand. 
These forts were to be erected as soon as the 
army should have chosen a position for a per- 
manent encampment, and were intended as a 
means of protection for the provisions and 
stores. The circumstance shows that the plan 
of transporting buildings ready made, across 
the seas, has not been invented anew by our 
emigrants to California. 

While these operations were going on, Will- 
iam dispatched small squadrons of horse as 
reconnoitering parties, to explore the country 
around, to see if there were any indications 
that Harold was near. These parties re- 
turned, one after another, after having gone 
some miles into the country in all directions, 
and reported that there were no signs of an 
enemy to be seen. Things were now getting 
settled, too, in the camp, and William gave 
directions that the array should kindle their 
camp fires for the night, and prepare and eat 




William. /ace p. ne. 



"Thus I Seize This Land." 



178 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

and is called "the Conqueror's Stone" to this 
day. 

The next day after the landing, the army 
was put in motion, and advanced along the 
coast toward the eastward. There was no 
armed enemy to contend against them there or 
to oppose their march; the people of the 
country, through which the army moved, far 
from attemjitiug to resist them, were filled with 
terror aud dismay. This terror was height- 
ened, in fact, by some excesses of which some 
parties of the soldiers were guilty. The in- 
habitants of the hamlets aud villages, over- 
whelmed with consternation at the sudden de- 
scent upon their shores of such avast horde of 
wild and desperate foreigners, fled in all direc- 
tions. Some made their escape into the in- 
terior; others, taking with them the helpless 
members of their households, and such valu- 
ables as they could carry, sought refuge in 
monasteries and churches, supposing that such 
sanctuaries as those, not even soldiers, unless 
they were pagans, would dare to violate. 
Others, still, attempted to conceal themselves 
in thickets and fens till the vast throng which 
was sweeping onward like a tornado should 
have passed. Though William afterward 
always evinced a decided disposition to protect 
the peaceful inhabitants of the country from 
all aggressions on the part of his troops, he 
had no time to attend to that subject now. He 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 179 

was intent on pressing forward to a place of 
safety. 

"William reached at length a position which 
seemed to him suitable for a permanent en- 
campment. It was on elevated land, near the 
sea. To the westward of it was a valley formed 
by a sort of recess opened in the range of 
chalky cliffs which here form the shore of Eng- 
land. In the bottom of this valley, down upon 
the 'beach, was a small town, then of no great 
consequence or power, but whose name, which 
was Hastings, has since been immortalized by 
the battle which was fought in its vicinity a few 
days after William's arrival. The position 
which William selected for his encampment 
was on high land in the vicinity of the town. 
The lines of the encampment were marked out, 
and the forts or castles which had been brought 
from Normandy were set up within the in- 
closures. Vast multitudes of laborers were 
soon at work, throwing up embankments, and 
building redoubts and bastions, while others 
were transporting the arms, the provisiojDS, and 
the munitions of war, and storing them in 
security within the lines. The encampment 
was soon completed, and the long lines of tents 
were set up in streets and squares within it. 
By the time, however, that the work was done 
some of William's agents and spies came into 
camp from the north, saying that in four days 
Harold would be upon him at the head of a 

hundred thousand men. 
13 




CHAPTEK X. 

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 

The reader will doubtless recollect that the 
tidings which William first received of the 
accession of King Harold were brought to him 
by Tostig, Harold's brother, on the day when 
he was trying his bow and arrows in the park 
at Eouen. Tostig was his brother's most in- 
veterate foe. He had been, during the reign 
of Edward, a great chieftain, ruling over the 
north of England. The city of York was then 
his capital. He had been expelled from these 
his dominions, and had quarreled with his 
brother Harold in respect to his right to be 
restored to them. In the course of this quarrel 
he was driven from the country altogether, and 
went to the Continent, burning with rage and 
resentment against his brother; and when he 
came to inform William of Harold's usurpa- 
tion his object was not merely to rouse Will- 
iam to action — he wished to act himself. He 
told William that he himself had more influence 
in England still than his brother, and that if 
William would supply him with a small fleet 
and a moderate number of men, he would make 

180 



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 181 

a descent upon the coast and show what he 
could do. 

William acceded to his proposal, and fur- 
nished him with the force which he required, 
and Tostig set sail. William had not, ap- 
parently, much confidence in the power of Tos- 
tig to produce any great effect, but his efforts, 
he thought, might cause some alarm in Eng- 
land, and occasion sudden and fatiguing 
marches to the troops, and thus distract and 
weaken King Harold's forces. William would 
not, therefore, accompany Tostig himself, but, 
dismissing him with such a force as he could 
readily raise on so sudden a call, he remained 
himself in Normandy, and commenced in earn- 
est his own grand preparations, as is described 
in the last chapter. 

Tostig did not think it prudent to attempt a 
landing on English shores until he had ob- 
tained some accession to the force which Will- 
iam had given him. He accordingly passed 
through the Straits of Dover, and then turning 
northward, he sailed along the eastern shores 
of the German Ocean in search of allies. He 
came, at length, to Norway. He entered into 
negotiations there with the Norwegian king, 
whose name, too, was Harold. This northern 
Harold was a wild and adventurous soldier and 
sailor, a sort of sea king, who had spent a con- 
siderable portion of his life in marauding ex- 
cursions upon the seas. He readily entered 



182 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

into Tostig's views. An arrangement was soon 
concluded, and Tostig set sail again to cross 
the German Ocean toward the British shores, 
while Harold promised to collect and equip his 
own fleet as soon as possible, and follow him. 

All this took place early in September; so 
that, at the same time that William's threat- 
ened invasion was gathering strength and 
menacing Harold's southern frontier, a cloud 
equally dark and gloomy, and quite as threat- 
ening in its aspect, was rising and swelling in 
the north ; while King Harold himself, though 
full of vague uneasiness and alarm, could gain 
no certain information in respect to either of 
these dangers. 

The Norwegian fleet assembled at the port 
appointed for the rendezvous of it, but, as the 
season was advanced and the weather stormy, 
the soldiers there, like William's soldiers on 
the coast of France, were afraid to put to sea. 
Some of them had dreams which they con* 
sidered as bad omens ; and so much supersti- 
tious importance was attached to such ideas in 
those times that these dreams were gravely 
recorded by the writers of the ancient chron- 
icles, and have come down to us as part of the 
regular and sober history of the times. One 
soldier dreamed that the expedition had sailed 
and landed on the English coast, and that there 
the English army came out to meet them. Be- 
fore the front of the army rode a woman of 



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 183 

gigantic stature, mounted on a wolf. The wolf 
had in his jaws a human body, dripping with 
blood, which he was engaged in devouring as 
he came along. The woman gave the wolf 
another victim after he had devoured the first. 

Another of these ominous dreams was the 
following : Just as the fleet was about setting 
sail the dreamer saw a crowd of ravenous vul- 
tures and birds of prey come and alight every- 
where upon the sails and rigging of the ships, 
as if they were going to accompany the expedi- 
tion. Upon the summit of a rock near the 
shore there sat the figure of a female, with a 
stern and ferocious countenance, and a drawn 
sword in her hand. She was busy counting 
the ships, pointing at them, as she counted, 
with her sword. She seemed a sort of fiend 
of destruction, and she called out to the birds, 
to encourage them to go. "Go!" said she, 
"without fear; you shall have abundance of 
prey. I am going too. " 

It is obvious that these dreams might as 
easily have been interpreted to protend death 
and destruction to their English foes as to the 
dreamers themselves. The soldiers were, how- 
ever, inclined — in the state of mind which the 
season of the year, the threatening aspect of 
the skies, and the certain dangers of their dis- 
tant expedition, produced — to apply the gloomy 
predictions which they imagined these dreams 
expressed, to themselves. Their chief, how- 



184 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 

ever, was of too desperate and determined a 
character to pay any regard to such influences. 
He set sail. His armament crossed the Ger- 
man Sea in safetj^ and joined Tostig on the 
coast of Scotland. The combined fleet moved 
slowly southward, along the shore, watching 
for an opportunity to land. 

They reached, at length, the town of Scar- 
borough, and landed to attack it. The inhabi- 
tants retired within the walls, shut the gates, 
and bid the invaders defiance. The town was 
situated under a hill, which rose in a steep 
acclivity upon one side. The story is, that 
the Norwegians went upon this hill, where 
they piled up an enormous heap of trunks and 
branches of trees, with the interstices filled 
with stubble, dried bark, and roots, and other 
such combustibles, and then setting the whole 
mass on fire, they rolled it down into the town 
— a vast ball of fire, roaring and crackling 
more and more, by the fanning of its flames in 
the wind, as it bounded along. The intelli- 
gent reader will, of course, pause and hesitate, 
in considering how far to credit such a story. 
It is obviously impossible that any mere pile, 
however closely packed, could be made to roll. 
But it is, perhaps, not absolutely impossible 
that trunks of trees might be framed together, 
or fastened with wet thongs or iron chains, 
after being made in the form of a rude cylinder 
or ball, and filled with comubstibles within, so 
as to retain its integrity in such a descent. 



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 185 

The account states that this strange method 
of bombardment was successful. The town 
was set on fire ; the people surrendered. Tostig 
and the Norwegians plundered it, and then, 
embarking again in their ships, they continued 
their voyage. 

The intelligence of this descent upon his 
northern coasts reached Harold in London 
toward the close of September, just as he was 
withdrawing his forces from the southern fron- 
tier, as was related in the last chapter, under 
the idea that the Norman invasion would 
probably be postponed until the spring; so 
that, instead of sending his troops into their 
winter quarters, he had to concentrate them 
again with all dispatch, and march at the head 
of them to the north, to avert this new and un- 
expected danger. 

While King Harold was thus advancing to 
meet them, Tostig and his Norwegian allies 
entered the Eiver Humber. Their object was 
to reach the city of York, which had been Tos- 
tig's former capital, and which was situated 
near the Eiver Ouse, a branch of the Humber. 
They accordingly ascended the Humber to the 
mouth of the Ouse, and thence up the latter 
river to a suitable point of debarkation not far 
from York. Here they landed and formed a 
great encampment. From this encampment 
they advanced to the siege of the city. The 
inhabitants made some resistance at first ; but. 



186 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

finding that their cause was hopeless, they 
offered to surrender, and a treaty of surrender 
was finally concluded. This negotiation was 
closed toward the evening of the day, and Tos- 
tig and his confederate forces were to be ad- 
mitted on the morrow. They therefore, feeling 
that their prize was secure, withdrew to their 
encampment for the night, and left the city to 
its repose. 

It so happened that King Harold arrived that 
very night, coming to the rescue of the city. 
He expected to have found an army of besiegers 
around the walls, but, instead of that, there 
was nothing to intercept his progress up to the 
very gates of the city. The inhabitants opened 
the gates to receive him, and the whole detach- 
ment which was marching under his command 
passed in, while Tostig and his Norwegian 
allies were sleeping quietly in their camp, 
wholly unconscious of the great change which 
had thus taken place in the situation of their 
affairs. 

The next morning Tostig drew out a large 
portion of the army, and formed them in 
array, for the purpose of advancing to take 
possession of the city. Although it was Sep- 
tember, and the weather had been cold and 
stormy, it happened that, on that morning, the 
sun came out bright, and the air was calm, 
giving promise of a warm day ; and as the 
movement into the city was to be a peaceful 



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 187 

one — a procession, as it were, and not a hostile 
march — the men were ordered to leave their 
coats of mail and all their heavy armor in 
camp, that they might march the more unin- 
cumbered. While they were advancing in this 
unconcerned and almost defenseless condition, 
they saw before them, on the road leading to 
the city, a great cloud of dust arising. It was 
a strong body of King Harold's troops coming 
out to attack them. At first, Tostig and the 
Norwegians were completely lost and bewildered 
at the appearance of so unexpected a spectacle. 
Very soon they could see weapons glittering 
here and there, and banners flying. A cry of 
"The enemy! the enemy!" arose, and passed 
along their ranks, producing universal alarm. 
Tostig and the Norwegian Harold halted their 
men, and marshaled them hastily in battle 
array. The English Harold did the same, 
when he had drawn up near to the front of the 
enemy ; both parties then paused, and stood 
surveying one another. 

Presently there was seen advancing from the 
English side a squadron of twenty horsemen, 
splendidly armed, and bearing a flag of truce. 
They approached to within a short distance of 
the Norwegian lines, when a herald, who was 
among them, called out aloud for Tostig. 
Tostig came forward in answer to the summons. 
The herald then proclaimed to Tostig that his 
brother did not wish to contend Avith him, but 



188 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

desired, on the contrary, that they should live 
together in harmony. He offered him peace, 
therefore, if he would lay down his arms, and 
he promised to restore him his former posses- 
sions and honors. 

Tostig seemed very much inclined to receive 
this proposition favorably. He paused and 
hesitated. At length he asked the messenger 
what terms King Harold would make with his 
friend and ally, the Norwegian Harold. 

"He shall have," replied the messenger, 
"seven feet of English ground for a grave. He 
shall have a little more than that, for he is 
taller than common men." 

"Then," replied Tostig, "tell my brother 
to prepare for battle. It shall never be said 
that I abandoned and betrayed my ally and 
friend." 

The troop returned with Tostig's answer to 
Harold's lines, and the battle almost imme- 
diately began. Of course the most eager and 
inveterate hostility of the English army would 
be directed against the Norwegians and their 
king, whom they considered as foreign intrud- 
ers, without any excuse or pretext for their 
aggression. It accordingly happened that, 
very soon after the commencement of the con- 
flict, Harold the Norwegian fell, mortally 
wounded by an arrow in his throat. The Eng- 
lish king then made new proposals to Tostig to 
cease the combat, and come to some terms of 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 189 

accommodation. But, in the meantime, Tos- 
tig had become himself incensed, and would 
listen to no overtures of peace. He continued 
the combat until he was himself killed. The 
remaining combatants in his army had now no 
longer any motive for resistance. Harold 
offered them a free passage to their ships, that 
they might return home in peace, if they 
would lay down their arms. They accepted 
the offer, retired on board their ships, and set 
sail. Harold then, having, in the meantime, 
heard of William's landing on the southern 
coast, set out on his return to the southward, 
to meet the more formidable enemy that 
menaced him there. 

His army, though victorious, was weakened 
by the fatigues of the march, and by the losses 
Duffered in the battle. Harold himself had 
been wounded, though not so severely as to 
prevent his continuing to exercise the command. 
He pressed on toward the south with great 
energy, sending messages on every side, into 
the surrounding country, on his line of march, 
calling upon the chieftains to arm themselves 
and their followers, and to come on with all 
possible dispatch, and join him. He hoped to 
advance so rapidly to the southern coast as to 
surprise William before he should have fully 
intrenched himself in his camp, and without 
his being aware of his enemy's approach. But 
William, in order to guard effectually against 



190 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

surprise, bad sent out small recormoitering 
parties of horsemen on all the roads leading 
northward that they might bring him in intel- 
ligence of the first approach of the enemy. 
Harold's advanced guard met these parties, 
and saw them as they drove rapidly back to 
the camp to give the alarm. Thus the hope of 
surprising William was disappointed. Harold 
found, too, by his spies, as he drew near, to 
his utter dismay, that "William's forces were 
four times as numerous as his own. It would, 
of course, be madness for him to think of at- 
tacking an enemy in his iutrenchments with 
such an inferior force. The only alternative 
left him was either to retreat, or else to take 
some strong position and fortify himself there, 
in the hope of being able to resist the invaders 
and arrest their advance, though he was not 
strong enough to attack them. 

Some of his counselors advised him not to 
hazard a battle at all, but to fall back toward 
London, carrying with him or destroying 
everything which could afford sustenance to 
William's army from the whole breadth of the 
land. This would soon, they said, reduce 
William's army to great distress for want of 
food, since it would be impossible for him to 
transport supplies across the channel for so 
vast a multitude. Besides, they said, this 
plan would compel William, in the extremity 
to which he would be reduced, to make so many 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 191 

predatory excursions among the more distant 
villages and towns, as would exasperate the in- 
habitants, and induce them to join Harold's 
army in great numbers to repel the invasion. 
Harold listened to these councils, but said, 
after consideration, that he could never adopt 
such a plan. He could not be so derelict to 
his duty as to lay waste a country which he 
was under obligations to protect and save, or 
compel his people to come to his aid by expos- 
ing them, designedly, to the excesses and 
cruelties of so ferocious an enemy. 

Harold determined, therefore, on giving 
William battle. It was not necessary, how- 
ever, for him to attack the invader. He per- 
ceived at once that if he should take a strong 
position and fortify himself in it, William must 
necessarily attack him, since a foreign army, 
just landed in the country, could not long re- 
main inactive on the shore. Harold accord- 
ingly chose a position six or seven miles from 
William's camp, and fortified himself strongly 
there. Of course neither army was in sight of 
the other, or knew the numbers, disposition, 
or plans of the enemy. The country between 
them was, so far as the inhabitants were con- 
cerned, a scene of consternation and terror. 
No one knew at what point the two vast clouds 
of danger and destruction which were hovering 
near them would meet, or over what regions the 
terrible storm which was to burst forth when 



192 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

the hour of that meeting should come, would 
sweep in its destructive fury. The inhalDitants, 
therefore, were everywhere flying in dismay, 
conveying away the aged and the helpless by 
any means which came most readily to hand ; 
taking with them, too, such treasures as they 
could carry, and hiding, in rude and uncertain 
places of concealment, those which they were 
compelled to leave behind. The region, thus, 
which lay between the two encampments was 
rapidly becoming a solitude and a desolation, 
across which no communication was made, and 
no tidings passed to give the armies at the en- 
campments intelligence of each other. 

Harold had two brothers among the officers 
of his army, Gurth and Leofwin. Their con- 
duct toward the Idng seems to have been of a 
more fraternal character than that of Tostig, 
who had acted the part of a rebel and an 
enemy. Gurth and Leofwin, on the contrarj^ 
adhered to his cause, and, as the hour of dan- 
ger and the great crisis which was to decide 
their fate drew nigh, they kept close to his 
side, and evinced a truly fraternal solicitude 
for his safety. It was they, specially, who 
had recommended to Harold to fall back on 
London, and not risk his life, and the fate of 
his kingdom, on the uncertain event of a battle. 

As soon as Harold had completed his en- 
campment, he expressed a desire to Gurth to 
ride across the intermediate country and take a 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 193 

view of William's lines. Such an undertaking 
was less dangerous then than it would be at 
the present day ; for now, such a reconnoiter- 
ing party would be discovered from the enemy's 
encampment, at a great distance, by means of 
spyglasses, and a twenty-four pound shot or a 
shell would be sent from a battery to blow the 
party to pieces or drive them away. The only 
danger then was of being pursued by a de- 
tachment of horsemen from the camp, or sur- 
rounded by an ambuscade. To guard against 
these dangers, Harold and Gurth took the most 
poAverful and fleetest horses in the camp, and 
they called out a small but strong guard of well- 
selected men to escort them. Thus provided 
and attended, they rode over to the enemy's 
lines, and advanced so near that, from a small 
eminence to which they ascended, they could 
survey the whole scene of William's encamp- 
ment: the palisades and embankments with 
which it was guarded, which extended for 
miles ; the long lines of tents within ; the vast 
multitude of soldiers ; the knights and ofiicers 
riding to and fro, glittering with steel ; and 
the grand pavilion of the duke himself, with 
the consecrated banner of the cross floating 
above it. Harold was very much impressed 
with the grandeur of the spectacle. 

After gazing on this scene for some time in 
silence, Harold said to Gurth, that perhaps, 
after all, the i^olicy of falling back would have 



194 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

been the wisest for them to adopt, rather than 
to risk a battle with so overwhelming a force 
as they saw before them. He did not know, 
he added, but that it would be best for them to 
change their plan, and adopt that policy now. 
Gurth said that it was too late. They had 
taken their stand, and now for them to break 
up their encampment and retire would be con- 
sidered a retreat and not a maneuver, and it 
would discourage and dishearten the whole 
realm. 

After surveying thus, as long as they desired 
to do so, the situation and extent of William's 
encampment, Harold's party returned to their 
own lines, still determined to make a stand 
there against the invaders, but feeling great 
doubt and despondency in respect to the result. 
Harold sent over, too, in the course of the day, 
some spies. The men whom he employed for 
this purpose were Normans by birth, and they 
could speak the French language. There were 
many Normans in England, who had come over 
in King Edward's time. These Norman spies 
could, of course, disguise themselves, and 
mingle, without attracting attention, among 
the thousands of workmen and camp followers 
that were going and coming continually around 
the grounds which William's army occupied. 
They did this so effectually that they pene- 
trated within the encampment without diffi- 
culty, examined everything, and, in due time, 




14 



Before the Battle of Hastings. 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. lOt 

returned to Harold witli their report. They 
gave a formidable account of the numbers and 
condition of William's troops. There was a 
large corps of bowmen in the army, which had 
adopted a fashion of being shaven and shorn 
in such a manner that the spies mistook them 
for priests. They told Harold, accordingly, 
on their return, that there were more priests 
in William's camp than there were soldiers in 
all his army. 

During this eventful day, William too sent 
a body of horsemen across the country which 
separated the two encampments, though his 
emissaries were not spies, but ambassadors, 
with propositions for peace. William had no 
wish to fight a battle, if what he considered as 
rightfully his kingdom could be delivered to 
him without it; and he determined to make one 
final effort to obtain a peaceable surrender of 
it, before coming to the dreadful resort of an 
appeal to arms. He accordingly sent his em- 
bassy with three propositions to make to the 
English king. The principal messenger in 
this company was a monk, whose name was 
Maigrot. He rode, with a proper escort and 
a flag of truce, to Harold's lines. The propo- 
sitions were these, by accepting either of 
which the monk said that Harold might avoid 
a battle. 1. That Harold should surrender the 
kingdom to William, as he had solemnly sworn 
to do over the sacred relics in Normandy. 2. 



198 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

That they should both agree to refer the whole 
subject of controversy between them to the 
pope, and abide by his decision. 3. That 
they should settle the dispute by single com- 
bat, the two claimants to the crown to fight a 
duel on the plain, in presence of their respec- 
tive armies. 

It is obvious that Harold could not accept 
either of these propositions. The first was to 
give up the whole point at issue. As for the 
second, the pope had already prejudged the 
case, and if it were to be referred to him, there 
could be no doubt that he would simply reaffirm 
his former, decision. And in respect to single 
combat, the disadvantage on Harold's part 
would be as great in such a contest as it would 
be in the proposed arbitration. He was him- 
self a man of comparatively slender form and 
of little bodily strength. William, on the 
other hand, was distinguished for his size, and 
for his extraordinary muscular energy. In a 
modern combat with firearms these personal 
advantages would be of no avail, but in those 
days, when the weapons were battle-axes, 
lances, and swords, they were almost decisive 
of the result. Harold therefore declined all 
William's propositions, and the monk returned. 
William seems not to have been wholly dis- 
couraged by this failure of his first attempt at 
negotiation, for he sent his embassage a second 
time to make one more proposal. It was, that 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 199 

if Harold would consent to acknowledge Will- 
iam as King of England, William would assign 
the whole territory to him and to his brother 
Gurth, to hold as provinces, under William's 
general sway. Under this arrangement Will- 
iam would himself return to Normandy, making 
the city of Eouen, which was his capital there, 
the capital of the whole united realm. To 
this proposal Harold replied, that he could not, 
on any terms, give lip his rights as sovereign 
of England. He therefore declined this pro- 
posal also. He, however, now made a propo- 
sition in his turn. He was willing, he said, 
to compromise the dispute ; so far as it could 
be done by the payment of money. If William 
would abandon his invasion and return to Nor- 
mandy, giving up his claims to the English 
crown, he would pay him, he said, any sum of 
money that he would name, 

William could not accept this proposal. He 
was, as he believed, the true and rightful heir 
to the throne of England, and there was a 
point of honor involved, as well as a dictate of 
ambition to be obeyed, in insisting on the 
claim. In the meantime, the day had passed, 
while these fruitless negotiations had been 
pending. Night was coming on. William's 
officers and counselors began to be uneasy at 
the delay. They said that every hour new 
reinforcements were coming into Harold's 
camp, while they themselves were gaining no 



200 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

advantage, and, consequently, the longer the 
battle was delayed the less was the certainty 
of victory. So William proraised them that 
he would attack King Harold in his camp the 
very next morning. 

As the time for the great final struggle drew 
near Harold's mind was oppressed more and 
more with a sense of anxiety and with forebod- 
ing fears. His brothers, too, were ill at ease. 
Their solicitude was increased by the recollec- 
tion of Harold's oath, and of the awful sanc- 
tions with which they feared the sacred relics 
might have invested it. They were not sure 
that their brother's excuse for setting it aside 
would save him from the guilt and curse of 
perjury in the sight of heaven. So they pro- 
posed, on the eve of the battle, that Harold 
himself should retire, and leave them to con- 
duct the defense. "We cannot deny," they 
said, "that you did take the oath; and, not- 
withstanding the circumstances which seem to 
absolve you from the obligation, it is best to 
avoid, if possible, the open violation of it. It 
will be better, on the whole, for you to leave 
the army and go to London. You can aid very 
eJBfectually in the defense of the kingdom by 
raising reinforcements there. We will stay and 
encounter the actual battle. Heaven cannot be 
displeased with us for so doing, for we shall be 
only discharging the duty, incumbent on all, 
of defending their native land from foreign 
invasion. ' ' 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 201 

Harold would not consent to adopt this plan. 
He could not retire himself, he said, at the 
hour of approaching danger, and leave his 
brothers and his friends exposed, when it was 
his crown for which they were contending. 

Such were the circumstances of the two 
armies on the evening before the battle; and, 
of course, in such a state of things, the ten- 
dency of the minds of men would be, in Harold's 
camp, to gloom and despondency, and in Will- 
iam's, to confidence and exultation. Harold 
undertook, as men in his circumstances often 
do, to lighten the load which weighed upon his 
own heart and oppressed the spirits of his men, 
by feasting and wine. He ordered a plentiful 
supper to be served, and supplied his soldiers 
with abundance of drink ; and it is said that his 
whole camp exhibited, during the whole night, 
one widespread scene of carousing and revelry, 
the troops being gathered everywhere in groups 
around their campfires, some half stupefied, 
others quarreling, and others still singing 
national songs, and dancing with wild excite- 
ment, according to the various effects produced 
upon different constitutions by the intoxicating 
influence of beer and wine. 

In William's camp there were witnessed very 
different scenes. There were a great many 
monks and ecclesiastics in the train of his army, 
and, on the night before the battle, they spent 
the time in saying masses, reading litanies and 



202 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

prayers, chanting anthems, and in other simi- 
lar acts of worship, assisted by the soldiers, 
who gathered in great congregations for this 
wild worship, in the open spaces among the 
tents and around the campfires. At length 
they all retired to rest, feeling an additional 
sense of safety in respect to the work of the 
morrow by having, as they supposed, entitled 
themselves, by their piety, to the protection of 
heaven. 

In the morning, too, in William's camp, the 
first thing done was to convene the army for a 
grand celebration of mass. It is a curious 
illustration of the mingling of the religious, or, 
perhaps, we ought rather to say, the super- 
stitious sentiment of the times, with the spirit 
of war, that the bishop who officiated in this 
solemn service of the mass wore a coat of mail 
under his pontifical attire, and an attendant 
stood by his side, while he was offering his 
prayers, with a steel-pointed spear in his hand, 
ready for the martial prelate to assume as soon 
as the service should be ended. Accordingly, 
when the religious duty was performed, the 
bishop threw off his surplice, took his spear, 
and mounting his white charger, which was 
also all saddled and bridled beside him, he 
headed a brigade of horse, and rode on to the 
assault of the enemy. 

William himself mounted a very magnificent 
warhorse from Spain, a present which he had 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 203 

formerly received from one of his wealthy 
barons. The name of the horse was Bayard. 
From William's neck were suspended some of 
the more sacred of the relics over which Harold 
had taken his false oath. He imagined that 
there would be some sort of charm in them, to 
protect his life, and to make the judgment of 
heaven more sure against the perjurer. The 
standard which the pope had blessed was borne 
by his side by a young standard bearer, who 
was very proud of the honor. An older sol- 
dier, however, on whom the care of this 
standard officially devolved, had asked to be 
excused from carrying it. He wished, he said, 
to do his work that day with the sword. While 
making these preliminary arrangements for 
going into battle, William, with the party 
around him, stood upon a gentle eminence in 
the middle of the camp, and in sight of the 
whole army. Every one was struck with ad- 
miration at the splendid figure which their com- 
mander made — his large and well-formed limbs 
covered with steel, and his horse, whose form 
was as noble as that of his master, prancing 
restlessly, as if impatient for the battle to begin. 
When all were ready, the Norman army ad- 
vanced gayly and joyously to attack the Eng- 
lish lines; but the gayety and joyousness of 
the scene soon disappeared, as corps after 
corps got fairly engaged in the awful work of 
the day. For ten long hours there reigned 



204 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

over the whole field one widespread scene of 
havoc and death — every soul among all those 
countless thousands delivered up to the su- 
preme dominion of the most dreadful pas- 
sions, excited to a perfect frenzy of hatred, 
rage, and revenge, and all either mercilessly 
killing others, or dying themselves in agony 
and despair. "When night came the Normans 
were everywhere victorious. They were in full 
possession of the field, and they rode trium- 
phantly to and fro through Harold's camp, 
leaping their horses over the bodies of the dead 
and dying which covered the ground. Those 
of King Harold's followers that had escaped 
the slaughter of the day fled in hopeless con- 
fusion toward the north, where the flying 
masses strewed the roads for miles with the 
bodies of men who sank down on the way, 
spent with wounds or exhausted by fatigue. 

In the morning, William marshaled his men 
on the field, and called over the names of the 
oflScers and men, as they had been registered 
in Normandy, for the purpose of ascertaining 
who were killed. While this melancholy cere- 
mony was going on, two monks came in, sent 
from the remains of the English army, and 
saying that King Harold was missing, and that 
it was rumored that he had been slain. If so, 
his body must be lying somewhere, they said, 
upon the field, and they wished for permission 
to make search for it. The permission was 




WyjioCT, /ace p 20i 



The Finding of Harold's Body, 



BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 205 

granted. With the aid of some soldiers they 
began to explore the ground, turning over and 
examining every lifeless form which, by the 
dress or the armor, might seem to be possibly 
the king's. Their search was for a long time 
vain ; the ghastly faces of the dead were so 
mutilated and changed that nobody could be 
identified. At length, however, a woman who 
had been in Harold's family, and knew his 
person more intimately than they, found and 
recognized the body, and the monks and the 
soldiers carried it away. 

The battle of Hastings sealed and settled the 
controversy in respect to the English crown. 
It is true that the adherents of Harold, and 
also those of Edgar Atheling, made afterward 
various efi'orts to rally their forces and recover 
the kingdom, but in vain. William advanced 
to London, fortified himself there, and made 
excursions from that city as a center until he 
reduced the island to his sway. He was 
crowned at length, at Westminister Abbey, with 
great pomp and parade. He sent for Matilda 
to come and join him, and instated her in his 
palace as Queen of England. He confiscated 
the property of all the English nobles who had 
fought against him, and divided it among the 
Norman chieftains Avho had aided him in the 
invasion. He made various excursions to and 
from Normandy himself, being received every- 



206 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 



where throughout his dominions, on both sides 
of the channel, with the most distinguished 
honors. In a word, he became, in the course of 
a few years after he landed, one of the greatest 
and most powerful potentates on the globe. 
How far all his riches and grandeur were from 
making him happy will appear in the follow- 
ing chapter. 




Hawking in William's Reign. 




CHAPTER XI. 

PRINCE Egbert's rebellion. 

Ambitious men, who devote their time and 
attention, through all the early years of life, to 
their personal and political aggrandizement, 
have little time to appropriate to the govern- 
ment and education of their children, and their 
later years are often imbittered by the dissipa- 
tion and vice, or by the unreasonable exactions 
of their sons. At least it was so in William's 
case. By the time that his public enemies 
were subdued, and he found himself undis- 
puted master both of his kingdom and his 
duchy, his peace and happiness were destroyed 
and the tranquillity of his whole realm was dis- 
turbed by a terrible family quarrel. 

The name of his oldest son was Kobert. He 
was fourteen years old when his father set off 
on his invasion of England. At that time he 
was a sort of spoiled child, having been his 
mother's favorite, and, as such, always greatly 
indulged by her. When William went away, 
it will be recollected that he appointed Matilda 
regent, to govern Normandy during his absence. 
This boy was also named in the regency, so 

207 



208 WILTJAM THE CONQUEROR. 

that lie was nominally associated with his 
mother, and he considered himself, doubtless, 
as the more important personage of the two. 
In a word, while William was engaged in Eng- 
land, prosecuting his conquests there, Kobert 
was growing up in Normandy a vain, self- 
conceited, and ungovernable young man. 

His father, in going back and forth between 
England and Normandy, often came into con- 
flict with his son, as usual in such cases. In 
these contests Matilda took sides with the son. 
"William's second son, whose name was Will- 
iam Kufus, was jealous of his older brother, 
and was often provoked by the overbearing and 
imperious spirit which Eobert displayed. 
William Eufus thus naturally adhered to the 
father's part in the. family feud. William 
Kufus was as rough and turbulent in spirit as 
Eobert, but he had not been so indulged. He 
possessed, therefore, more self-control; he 
knew very well how to suppress his propensi- 
ties, and conceal the unfavorable aspects of his 
character when in the presence of his father. 

There was a third brother, named Henry. 
He was of a more quiet and inoffensive char- 
acter, and avoided taking an active part in the 
quarrel, except so far as William Eufus led 
him on. He was William Eufus' friend and 
companion, and, as such, Eobert considered 
him as his enemy. All, in fact, except Matil- 
da, were against Eobert, who looked down, in 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 209 

a haughty and domineering manner — as the 
oldest son and heir is very apt to do, in rich 
and powerful families — upon the comparative 
insignificance of his younger brethren. The 
king, instead of restraining this imperious 
spirit in his son, as he might, perhaps, have 
done by a considerate and kind, and, at the 
same time, decisive exercise of authority, 
teased and tormented him by sarcasms and 
petty vexations. Among other instances of 
this, he gave him the nickname of Short BootSj 
because he was of inferior stature. As Kobert 
was, however, at this time of full age, he was 
stung to the quick at having such a stigma at- 
tached to him by his father, and his bosom 
burned with secret sentiments of resentment 
and revenge. 

He had, besides, other causes of complaint 
against his father, more serious still. When 
he was a very young child, his father, accord- 
ing to the custom of the times, had espoused 
him to the daughter and heiress of a neighbor- 
ing earl, a child like himself. Her name was 
Margaret. The earldom which this little Mar- 
garet was to inherit was Maine. It was on the 
frontiers of Normandy, and it was a rich and 
valuable possession. It was a part of the stipu- 
lation of the marriage contract that the young 
bride's domain was to be delivered to the father 
of the bridegroom, to be held by him until the 
bridegroom should become of age, and the mar- 
is 



210 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

riage should be fully consummated. In fact, 
the getting possession of this rich inheritance, 
with a prospect of holding it so many years, 
was very probably the principal end which 
William had in view in contracting for a 
matrimonial union so very premature. 

If this was, in reality, William's plan, it 
resulted, in the end, even more favorably than 
he had anticipated ; for the little heiress died 
a short time after her inheritance was put into 
the possession of her father-in-law. There 
was nobody to demand a restoration of it, and 
so William continued to hold it until his son, 
the bridegroom, became of age. Kobert then 
demanded it, contending that it was justly his. 
William refused to surrender it. He main- 
tained that what had passed between his son in 
his infancy, and the little Margaret, was not a 
marriage, but only a betrothment — a contract 
for a future marriage, which was to take place 
when the parties were of age — that, since Mar- 
garet's death prevented the consummation of 
the union, Eobert was never her husband, and 
could not, consequently, acquire the rights of 
a husband. The lands, therefore, ought man- 
ifestly, he said, to remain in the hands of her 
guardian, and whatever rights any other per- 
sons might have, claiming to succeed Margaret 
as her natural heirs, it was plain that his son 
could have no title whatever. 

However satisfactory this reasoning might 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 211 

be to the mind of William, Kobert was only 
exasperated by it. He looked upon the case 
as one of extreme injustice and oppression 
on the part of his father, who, not content, he 
said, with his own enormous possessions, must 
add to them by robbing his own son. In this 
opinion Kobert's mother, Matilda, agreed with 
him. As for William Eufus and Henry, they 
paid little attention to the argument, but were 
pleased with the result of it, and highly en- 
joyed their brother's vexation and chagrin in 
not being able to get possession of his earldom. 
There was another very serious subject of 
dispute between Kobert and his father. It 
has already been stated that when the duke 
set out on his expedition for the invasion of 
England, he left Matilda and Robert together 
in charge of the duchy. At the commence- 
ment of the period of his absence Eobert was 
very young, and the actual power rested mainly 
in his mother's hands. As he grew older, how- 
ever, he began to exercise an increasing in- 
fluence and control. In fact, as he was him- 
self ambitious and aspiring, and his mother 
indulgent, the power passed very rapidly into 
his hands. It was eight years from the time 
that William left Normandy before his power 
was so far settled and established in England 
that he could again take the affairs of his 
original realm into his hands. He had left 
Robert, at that time a mere boy of fourteen, 



212 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

who, though rude and turbulent in character, 
•was still politically powerless. He found 
him, on his return, a roan of twenty-two, ruder 
and more turbulent tbtm before, and in the full 
possession of political power. This power, 
too, he found him very unwilling to surrender. 

In fact, when William came to receive back 
the province of Normandy again, Eobert almost 
refused to surrender it. He said that his 
father had always promised him the duchy of 
Normandy as his domain so soon as he should 
become of age, and he claimed now the fulfill- 
ment of this promise. Besides, he said that, 
now that his father was King of England, his 
former realm was of no consequence to him. 
It did not add sensibly to his influence or his 
power, and he might, therefore, without suffer- 
ing any sensible loss himself, grant it to his 
son. William, on his part, did not acknowl- 
edge the force of either of these arguments. 
He would not admit that he had ever promised 
Normandy to his son ; and as to voluntarily 
relinquishing any part of his possessions, he 
had no faith in the policy of a man's giving 
up his power or his property to his children 
until they were justly entitled to inherit it by 
his death; at any rate, he should not do it. 
He had no idea, as he expressed it, "of put- 
ting off his clothes before he was going to bed. ' ' 

The irritation and ill will which these dis- 
sensions produced grew deeper and more in- 




WllUam face p 212 

Coronation of William the Conqueror. 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 313 

veterate every day, though the disagreement 
had been thus far a private and domestic dis- 
pute, confined, in its influence, to the king's 
immediate household. An occasion, however, 
now occurred, on which the private family feud 
broke out into an open public quarrel. The 
circumstances were these : 

King William had a castle in Normandy, at 
a place called L'Aigle. He was spending 
some time there, in the year 1076, with his 
court and family. One day William Kufus 
and Henry were in one of the upper apart- 
ments of the castle, playing with dice, and 
amusing themselves, in company with other 
young men of the court, in various ways. 
There was a window in the apartment leading 
out upon a balcony, from which one might 
look down upon the courtyard of the castle be- 
low. Eobert was in this courtyard with some 
of Ms companions, walking there in an irritated 
state of mind, which had been produced by 
some previous disputes with his brothers. 
William Rufus looked down from the balcony 
and saw him, and by way, perhaps, of quench- 
ing his anger, poured some water down upon 
him. The deed changed the suppressed and 
silent irritation in Robert's heart to a perfect 
frenzy of rage and revenge. He drew his 
sword and sprang to the staircase. He uttered 
■loud and terrible imprecations as he went, de- 
claring that he would kill the author of such 



214 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

an insult, even if he was his brother. The 
courtyard was, of course, immediately filled 
with shouts and exclamations of alarm, and 
everybody pressed forward toward the room 
from which the water had been thrown, some 
to witness, and some to prevent the affray. 

The king himself, who happened to be in 
that part of the castle at the time, was one of 
the number. He reached the apartment just 
in time to interpose between his sons, and pre- 
vent the commission of the awful crime of 
fratricide. As it was, he found it extremely 
difficult to part the ferocious combatants. It 
required all his paternal authority, and not a 
little actual force, to arrest the affray. He 
succeeded, however, at length, with the help 
of the bystanders, in parting his sons, and 
Robert, out of breath, and pale with impotent 
rage, was led away. 

Eobert considered his father as taking sides 
against him in this quarrel, and he declared 
that he could not, and would not, endure such 
treatment any longer. He found some sym- 
pathy in the conversation of his mother to whom 
he went immediately with bitter complain- 
ings. She tried to soothe and quiet his wound- 
ed spirit, but he would not be pacified. He 
spent the afternoon and evening in organizing 
a party of wild and desperate young men from 
among the nobles of the court, with a view of 
raising a rebellion against his father, and get- 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 215 

ting possession of Normandy by force. They 
kept their design profoundly secret, but pre- 
pared to leave L'Aigle that night, to go and 
seize Rouen, the capital, which they hoped to 
surprise into a surrender. Accordingly, in the 
middle of the night, the desperate troop 
mounted their horses and rode away. In the 
morning the king found that they were gone, 
and he sent an armed force after them. Their 
plan of surprising Rouen failed. The king's 
detachment overtook them, and, after a sharp 
contest, succeeded in capturing a few of the 
rebels, though Robert himself, accompanied by 
some of the more desperate of his followers, 
escaped over the frontier into a neighboring 
province, where he sought refuga in the castle 
of one of his father's enemies. 

This result, as might have been expected, 
filled the mind of Matilda with anxiety and 
distress. A civil war between her husband 
and her son was now inevitable; and while 
every consideration of prudence and of duty 
required her to espouse the father's cause, her 
maternal love, a principle stronger far, in most 
cases, than prudence and duty combined, drew 
her irresistibly toward her son. Robert col- 
lected around him all the discontented and des- 
perate spirits of the realm, and for a long time 
continued to make his father infinite trouble. 
Matilda, while she forbore to advocate his cause 
ODenlv in the presence of the king, kept up a 



21G WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

secret communication with him. She sent him 
information and advice from time to time, and 
sometimes supplies, and was thus, technically, 
guilty of a great crime — the crime of main- 
taining a treasonable corresxDondence with a 
rebel. In a moral point of view, however, 
her conduct may have been entirely right; at 
any rate, its influence was very salutary, for 
she did all in her power to restrain both the 
father and the son ; and by the influence which 
she thus exerted, she doubtless mitigated very 
much the fierceness of the struggle. 

Of course, the advantage, in such a civil war 
as this, would be wholly on the side of the 
sovereign. William had all the power and re- 
sources of the kingdom in his own hands — the 
army, the towns, the castles, the treasures. 
Kobert had a troop of wild, desperate, and un- 
manageable outlaws, without authority, with- 
out money, without a sense of justice on their 
side. He gradually became satisfied that the 
contest was vain. In proportion as the activity 
of the hostilities diminished, Matilda became 
more and more open in her efforts to restrain 
it, and to allay the animosity on either side. 
She succeeded, finally, in inducing Robert to 
lay down his arms, and then brought about an 
interview between the parties, in hopes of a 
peaceful settlement of the quarrel. 

It appeared very soon, however, at this inter- 
view, that there was no hope of anything like a 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 217 

real and cordial reconciliation. Though both 
the father and son had become weary of the 
unnatural war which they had waged against 
each other, yet the ambitious and selfish de- 
sires on both sides, in which the contest had 
originated, remained unchanged, Robert be- 
gan the conference by imperiously demanding 
of his father the fulfillment of his promise to 
give him the government of Normandy. His 
father replied by reproaching him with his un- 
natural and wicked rebellion, and warned him 
of the danger he incurred, in imitating the ex- 
ample of Absalom, of sharing that wretched 
rebel's fate. Robert rejoined that he did not 
come to meet his father for the sake of hearing 
a sermon preached. He had had enough of 
sermons, he said, when he was a boy, studying 
grammar. He wanted his father to do him 
justice, not preach to him. The king said 
that he should never divide his dominions, while 
he lived, with any one; and added, notwith- 
standing what Robert had contemptuously said 
about sermons, that the Scripture declared that 
a house divided against itself eould not stand. 
He then proceeded to rej)roach and incriminate 
the prince in the severest manner for his dis- 
loyalty as a subject, and his undutifulness and 
ingratitude as a son. It was intolerable, he 
said, that a son should become the rival and 
bitterest enemy of his father, when it was to 
him that he owed, not merely all that he en- 
joyed, but his very existence itself. 



218 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

These reproaches were probably uttered in 
an imperious and angry manner, and with that 
spirit of denunciation which only irritates the 
accused and arouses his resentment, instead of 
awakening feelings of penitence and contrition. 
At any rate, the thought of his filial ingrati- 
tude, as his father presented it, produced no 
relenting in Kobert's mind. . He abruptly ter- 
minated the interview, and went out of his 
father's presence in a rage. 

In spite of all his mother's exertions and 
entreaties, he resolved to leave the country once 
more. He said he would rather be an exile, 
and wander homeless in foreign lands, than to 
remain in his father's court, and be treated in 
so unjust and ignominious a manner, by one 
who was bound by the strongest possible obli- 
gations to be his best and truest friend. Ma- 
tilda could not induce him to change this deter- 
mination; and, accordingly, taking with him 
a few of the most desperate and dissolute of his 
companions, he went northward, crossed the 
frontier, and sought refuge in Flanders. Flan- 
ders, it will be recollected, was Matilda's native 
land. Her brother was the Earl of Flanders at 
this time. The earl received young Robert 
very cordially, both for his sister's sake, and 
also, probably, in some degree, as a means of 
petty hostility against King William, his 
powerful neighbor, whose glory and good for- 
tune he envied. 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 'llO 

Kobert had not the means or the resources 
necessary for renewing an open war with his 
father, but his disposition to do this was as 
strong as ever, and he began immediately to 
open secret communications and correspondence 
with all the nobles and barons in Normandy 
whom he thought disposed to espouse his 
cause. He succeeded in inducing them to make 
secret contributions of funds to supply his 
pecuniary wants, of course promising to repay 
them with ample grants and rewards so soon 
as he should obtain his rights. He maintained 
similar communications, too, with Matilda, 
though she kept them very profoundly secret 
from her husband. 

Robert had other friends besides those 
whom he found thus furtively in Normandy. 
The King of France himself was much pleased 
at the breaking out of this terrible feud in the 
family of his neighbor, who, from being his 
dependent aud vassal, had become, by his con- 
quest of England, his great competitor and rival 
in the estimation of mankind. Philip was 
disposed to rejoice at any occurrences which 
tended to tarnish "William's glory, or which 
threatened a division and diminution of his 
power. He directed his agents, therefore, 
both in Normandy and in Flanders, to encour- 
age and promote the dissension by every means 
in their power. He took great care not to 
commit himself by any open and positive 



220 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

promises of aid, and jet still he contrived, by 
a thousand indirect means, to encourage Eobert 
to expect it. Thus the mischief was widened 
and extended, while yet nothing effectual was 
done toward organizing an insurrection. In 
fact, Robert had neither the means nor the 
mental capacity necessary for maturing and 
carrying into effect any actual plan of rebel- 
lion. In the meantime, months passed away, 
and as nothing effectual was done, Eobert's 
adherents in Normandy became gradually dis- 
couraged. They ceased their contributious, 
and gradually forgot their absent and incom- 
petent leader. Eobert spent his time in dissi- 
pation and vice, squandering in feasts and in 
the company of abandoned men and women 
the means which his followers sent him to en- 
able him to prepare for the war ; and when, at 
last, these supplies failed him, he would have 
been reduced gradually to great distress and 
destitution, were it not that one faithful and 
devoted friend still adhered to him. That 
friend was his mother. 

Matilda knew very well that whatever she 
did for her absent sou must be done in the most 
clandestine manner, and this required much 
stratagem and contrivance on her part. She 
was aided, however, in her efforts at conceal- 
ment by her husband's absence. He was now 
for a time in England, having been called there 
by some pressing demands of public duty. He 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 221 

left a great minister of state in charge of Nor- 
mandy, whose vigilance Matilda thought it 
would be comparatively easy to elude. She 
sent to Robert, in Flanders, first her own 
private funds. Then she employed for this 
purpose a portion of such public funds as came 
into her hands. The more she sent, however, 
the more frequent and imperious were Eobert's 
demands for fresh supplies. The resources of 
a mother, whether great or small, are always 
soon exhausted by the insatiable requirements 
of a dissolute and profligate son. When Ma- 
tilda's money was gone, she sold her jewels, 
then her more expensive clothes, and, finally, 
such objects of value, belonging to herself or 
to her husband, as could be most easily and 
privately disposed of. The minister, who was 
very faithful and watchful in the discharge of 
his duties, observed indications that something 
mysterious was going on. His suspicious 
were aroused. He watched Matilda's move- 
ments, and soon discovered the truth. He sent 
information to William. William could not 
believe it possible that his minister's surmises 
could be true ; for William was simply a states- 
man and a soldier, and had very inadequate 
ideas of the absorbing and uncontrollable 
power which is exercised by the principle of 
maternal love. 

He, however, determined immediately to 
take most efficient measures to ascertain the 



222 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

truth. He returned to Normandy, and there 
he succeeded in intercepting one of Matilda's 
messengers on his way to Flanders, with com- 
munications and money for Eobert. The name 
of this messenger was Sampson. William 
seized the money and the letters, and sent the 
messenger to one of his castles, to be shut up 
in a dungeon. Then, with the proofs of guilt 
which he had thus obtained, he went, full of 
astonishment and anger, to find Matilda, and 
to upbraid her, as he thought she deserved, for 
her base and ungrateful betrayal of her hus- 
band. 

The reproaches which he addressed to her 
were bitter and stern, though they seem to have 
been spoken in a tone of sorrow rather than of 
anger. "lam sure," he said, "I have ever 
been to you a faithful and devoted husband. 
I do not know what more you could have de- 
sired than I have done. I have loved you 
with a sincere and true affection. I have 
honored you. I have placed you in the highest 
positions, intrusting you repeatedly with large 
shares of my own sovereign power. I have 
confided in you — committing my most essen- 
tial and vital interests to your charge. And 
now this is the return. You employ the very 
position, and power, and means which your 
confiding husband has put into your hands, to 
betray him in the most cruel way, and to aid 
and encourage his worst and most dangerous 
enemy." 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 223 

To these reproaches Matilda attempted uo 
reply, except to plead the irresistible impet- 
uosity and strength of her maternal love. 
"I could not bear," she said, "to leave Eobert 
in distress and suffering while I had any pos- 
sible means of relieving him. He is my child. 
I think of him all the time. I love him more 
than my life. I solemnly declare to you, that 
if he were now dead, and I could restore him 
to life by dying for him, I Avould most gladly 
do it. How, then, do you suppose that I could 
possibly live here in abundance and luxury, 
while he was wandering homeless, in destitu- 
tion and want, and not try to relieve him? 
Whether it is right or wrong for me to feel so, 
I do not know ; but this I know, I must feel 
so ; I cannot help it. He is our first-born son ; 
I cannot abandon him." 

"William went away from the presence of Ma- 
tilda full of resentment and anger. Of course 
he could do nothing in respect to her but re- 
proach her, but he determined that the un- 
lucky Sampson should suffer severely for the 
crime. He sent orders to the castle where he 
lay immured, requiring that his eyes should 
be put out. Matilda, however, discovered the 
danger which threatened her messenger in time 
to send him warning. He contrived to make 
his escape, and fled to a certain monastery 
which was under Matilda's special patronage 
and charge. A monastery was, in those days, 
.16 



224 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

a sanctuary into which the arm even of the 
most despotic authority scarcely dared to in- 
trude in pursuit of its victim. To make the 
safety doubly sure, the abbot proposed that 
the trembling fugitive should join their order 
and become a monk. Sampson was willing to 
do anything to save his life. The operation 
of putting out the eyes was very generally 
fatal, so that he considered his life at stake. 
He was, accordingly, shaven and shorn, and 
clothed in the monastic garb. He assumed the 
vows of the order, and entered, with his brother 
monks, upon the course of fastings, penances, 
and prayers which pertained to his new voca- 
tion ; and William left him to pursue it in 
peace. 

Things went on worse instead of better after 
this discovery of the mother's participation in 
the councils of the son. Either through the 
aid which his mother had rendered, or by 
other means, there seemed to be a strong party 
in and out of Normandy who were inclined to 
espouse Robert's cause. His friends, at 
length, raised a very considerable army, and 
putting him at the head of it, they advanced, 
to attack Eouen. The king, greatly alarmed at 
this danger, collected all the forces that he 
could command, and went to meet his rebel 
son. "William Eufus accompanied his father, 
intending to fight by bis side ; while Matilda, 
in an agony of terror and distress, remained. 




WMia I race p i ^ 

Robert Asking His Father's Pardon. 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 225 

half distracted, within her castle walls — as a 
wife and mother might be expected to be, on 
the approach of a murderous conflict between 
her husband and her sou. The thought that 
one of them might, perhaps, be actually killed 
by the other, filled her with dismay. 

And, in fact, this dreadful result came very 
near being realized. Kobert, in the castle at 
L'Aigle, had barely been prevented from de- 
stroying his brother, and now, on the plain of 
Archembraye, where this battle was fought, his 
father fell, and was very near being killed, by 
his hand. In the midst of the fight, while the 
horsemen were impetuously charging each 
other in various parts of the field, all so dis- 
guised by their armor that no one could know 
the individual with whom he was contending, 
Kobert encountered a large and powerful 
knight, and drove his lance through his armor 
into his arm. Through the shock of the en- 
counter and the faintness produced by the 
agony of the wound, the horseman fell to the 
ground, and Robert perceived, by the voice 
with which his fallen enemy cried out in his 
pain and terror, that it was his father that he 
had thus pierced with his steel. At the same 
moment, the wounded father, in looking at his 
victorious antagonist, recognized his son. He 
cursed his unnatural enemy with a bitter and 
terrible malediction. Robert was shocked and 



226 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

terrified at what he Lad done. He leaped from 
his horse, knelt down by the side of his father, 
and called for aid. The king, distracted by 
the anguish of his wound, and by the burning 
indignation and resentment which raged in his 
bosom against the unnatural hostility which 
inflicted it, turned away from his son, and re- 
fused to receive any succor from him. 

Besides the misfortune of being unhorsed 
and wounded, the battle itself went that day 
against the king. Eobert's army remained 
masters of the field. William Eufus was 
wounded too, as well as his father. Matilda 
was overwhelmed with distress and mental 
anguish at the result. She could not endure the 
idea of allowing so unnatural and dreadful a 
struggle to go on. She begged her husband, 
with the most earnest importunities and with 
many tears, to find some way of accommodat- 
ing the dispute. Her nights were sleepless, 
her days were spent in weeping, and her health 
and strength M'ere soon found to be wasting 
ver}^ rapidly away. She was emaciated, wan, 
and pale, and it was plain that such distress, 
if long continued, would soon bring her to the 
grave. 

Matilda's intercessions at length prevailed. 
The king sent for his son, and, after various 
negotiations, some sort of compromise was 
effected. The armies were disbanded, peace 



PRINCE ROBERT'S REBELLION. 227 

was restored, and Robert and his father once 
more seemed to be friends. Soon after this, 




Reconciliation of William and Robert. 

William, having a campaign to make in the 
north of England, took Robert with him as one 
of the generals in his army. 



JkiiijlMibi 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE CONCLUSION. 

From the time of the battle of Hastings, 
which took place in 1066, to that of William's 
death, which occurred in 1087, there inter- 
vened a period of about twenty years, during 
which the great monarch reigned over his ex- 
tended dominions with a very despotic sway, 
though not without a large share of the usual 
dangers, difficulties, and struggles attending 
such a rule. He brought over immense num- 
bers of Normans from Normandy into England, 
and placed all the military and civil power of 
the empire in their hands ; and he relied 
almost entirely upon the superiority of his 
physical force for keeping the country in subju- 
gation to his sway. It is true, he maintained 
that he was the rightful heir to the English 
crown, and that, consequently, the tenure by 
which he held it was the right of inheritance, and 
not the right of conquest ; and he professed to 
believe that the people of England generally ad- 
mitted his claim. This was, in fact, to a con- 
siderable extent, true. At least there was proba- 

228 



THE CONCLUSION. 229 

bly a large part of the population who believed 
William's right to the crown superior to that 
of Harold, whom he had deposed. Still, as 
William was by birth and education and lan- 
guage a foreigner, and as all the friends and 
followers who attended him, and, in fact, 
almost the whole of the army, on which he 
mainly relied for the preservation of his power, 
were foreigners too — wearing a strange dress, 
and speaking in an unknown tongue — the great 
mass of the English people could not but feel 
that they were under a species of foreign sub- 
jugation. Quarrels were therefore continually 
breaking out between them and their Norman 
masters, resulting in fierce and bloody struggles 
on their part to get free. These rebellions 
were always effectually put down ; but when 
quelled in one quarter they soon broke out in 
another, and they kept William and his forces 
almost always employed. 

But William was not a mere warrior. He 
was well aware that the permanence and sta- 
bility of his own and his successor's sway in 
England would depend finally upon the kind of 
basis on which the civil institutions of the 
country should rest, and on the proper con- 
solidation and adjustment of the administrative 
and judicial functions of the realm. In the 
intervals of his campaigns, therefore, William 
devoted a great deal of time and attention to 
this subject, and he evinced a most profound 



330 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

and statesmanlike wisdom and sagacity in his 
manner of treating it. 

He had, in fact, a Herculean task to perform 
— a double task — viz., to amalgamate two 
nations, and also to fuse and merge two lan- 
guages into one. He was absolutely com- 
pelled, by the circumstances under which he 
was placed, to grapple with both these vast 
undertakings. If, at the time when, in his 
park at Eouen, he first heard of Harold's ac- 
cession, he had supposed that there was a party 
in England in his favor strong enough to allow 
of his proceeding there alone, or with a small 
Norman attendance, so that he might rely 
mainly on the English themselves for his 
accession to the throne, the formidable diffi- 
culties which, as it was, he had subsequently 
to encounter, would all have been saved. But 
there was no such party — at least there was no 
evidence that there was one of sufficient strength 
to justify him in trusting himself to it. It 
seemed to him, then, that if he undertook to 
gain possession of the English throne at all, 
he must rely entirely on the force which he 
could take with him from Normandy. To 
make this reliance effectual, the force so taken 
must be an overwhelming one. Then, if 
Normans in great numbers were to go to Eng- 
land for the purpose of putting him upon the 
English throne, they must be rewarded, and so 
vast a number of candidates for the prizes of 



THE CONCLUSION. 231 

honor and wealth could be satisfied only in 
England, and by confiscations there. His pos- 
sessions in Normandy would obviously be in- 
sufficient for such a purpose. It was evident, 
moreover, that if a large number of Norman 
adventurers were placed in stations of trust 
and honor, and charged with civil offices and 
adminstrative functions all over England, they 
would form a sort of class by themselves, and 
would be looked upon with jealousy and envy 
by the original inhabitants, and that there was 
no hope of maintaining them safely in their 
position, except by making the class as numer- 
ous and as strong as possible. In a word, 
William saw very clearly that, while it would 
have been very well, if it had been possible, 
for him to have brought no Normans to Eng- 
land, it was clearly best, since so many must 
go, to contrive every means to swell and in- 
crease the number. It was one of those cases 
where, being obliged to go far, it is best to go 
farther; and William resolved on thoroughly 
Normanizing, so to speak, the whole British 
realm. This enormous undertaking he ac- 
complished fully and permanently ; and the 
institutions of England, the lines of family 
descent, the routine of judicial and adminis- 
trative business, and the very language of the 
realm, retain the Norman characteristics which 
he ingrafted into them to the present day. 
It gives us a feeling akin to that of sublimity 



232 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

to find, even in our own land, and in the most 
remote situations of it, the lingering relics of 
the revolutions and deeds of these early ages, 
still remaining^ like a faint ripple rolling gently 
upon a beach in a deep and secluded bay, 
which was set in motiou,perhaps,at first, as one 
of the mountainous surges of awintery storm 
in the most distant seas. For example, if we 
enter the most humble court in any remote and 
newly-settled county in the American forests, 
a plain and rustic-looking man will call the 
equally rustic-looking assembly to order by 
rapping his baton, the only symbol of his 
office, on the floor, and calling out, in words 
mystic and meaningless to him, "O yes! O 
yes! Oyes!"* He little thinks that he is 
obeying a behest of William the Conqueror, 
issued eight hundred years ago, ordaining that 
his native tongue should be employed in the 
courts of England. The irresistible progress 
of improvement and reform have gradually dis- 
placed the intruding language again — except 
so far as it has become merged and incorpo- 
rated with the common language of the country 
— from all the ordinary forms of legal proceed- 
ings. It lingers still, however, as it were, on 
the threshold, in this call to order ; and as it 
is harmless there, the spirit of conservatism 
will, perhaps, preserve for it this last place of 

* Oyez ! Oyez ! Oyez ! Norman French for Hearken 1 
hearken ! hearken ! 



THE CONCLUSION. 233 

refuge for a thousand years to come, and "0 
yes'' will be the phrase for ordaining silence 
by many generations of officers, who will, per- 
haps, never have heard of the authority whose 
orders they unwittingly obey. 

The work of incorporating the Norman and 
English families with one another, and fusing 
the two languages into one, required about a 
century for its full accomplishment; and when 
at last it was accomplished, the people of Eng- 
land were somewhat puzzled to, know whether 
they ought to feel proud of William's exploits 
in the conquest of England, or humiliated by 
them. So far as they were themselves de- 
scended from the Normans, the conquest was 
one of the glorious deeds of their ancestors. 
So far as they were of English parentage, it 
would seem to be incumbent on them to mourn 
over their fathers' defeat. It is obvious that 
from such a species of perplexity as this there 
was no escape, and it has accordingly con- 
tinued to embarrass the successive generations 
of Englishmen down to the present day. The 
Norman Conquest occupies, therefore, a very 
uncertain and equivocal position in English 
history, the various modern writers who look 
back to it now being hardly able to determine 
whether they are to regard it as a mortifying 
subjugation which their ancestors suffered, or 
a glorious victory which they gained. 

One of the great measures of William's 



234 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

reign, and one, in fact, for which it has been 
particularly famous in modern times, was a 
grand census or registration of the kingdom, 
which the Conqueror ordered with a view of 
having on record a perfect enumeration and 
description of all the real and personal property 
in the kingdom. This grand national survey 
was made in 1078. The result was recorded 
in two volumes of different sizes, which were 
called the Great and the Little Domesday Book. 
These books are still preserved, and are to this 
day of the very highest authority in respect to 
all questions touching ancient rights of prop- 
erty. One is a folio, and the other a quarto 
volume. The records are written on vellum, in 
a close, abridged, and, to ordinary readers, a 
perfectly unintelligible character. The lan- 
guage is Latin ; but a modern Latin scholar, 
without any means other than an inspection of 
the work, would be utterly unable to decipher 
it. In fact, though the character is highly 
wrought, and in some respects elegant, the 
whole style and arrangement of the work is 
pretty nearly on a par, in respect to scientific 
skill, with Queen Emma's designs upon the 
Bayeux tapestry. About half a century ago, 
copies of these works were printed, by means 
of type made to represent the original charac- 
ter. But these printed editions were found 
unintelligible and useless until copious indexes 
were prepared and published, to accompany 
them, at great expense of time and labor. 



THE CONCLUSION. 235 

Some little idea of the character and style of 
this celebrated record may be obtained from 
the following specimen, which is as faithful an 
imitation of the original as any ordinary typog- 
graphy will allow : 

fin aStij:fstan JliunV* 

♦ CoiJi 

3Sitt ten ISennuntJCBPe. I)eranjQ tcnuft. lEx sc tsd^i 

$. Tin. id. m° $, fit. t)R>. 2rta.-e. Viil car. fin tinfo. e una 

car. 7 Wb. bfiH 7 jrpjriif. tor^ cu. un. car. 

5bf noba 7 jjulcjjra cccta. 7 jt:. ac j »tf. SHba/ b. pore 

lie pasnaa : 

The passage, deciphered and expressed in 
full, stands thus — the letters omitted in the 
original, above, being supplied in italics : 

In Brixistan Hv^Bredo. 
Rex tenei Bermundesye. Herald «s comes tenuit. Tunc 
se defendebat Tpro xiii. hidis, modo pro xii. hidts. Terra est 
viii. csir7'ueatarum. In dominio est una carrucata et xxv. 
villani of xxxiii. hordarii cum una carrucata. Ibi nova et 
pulchra ecclesia, et xx. acres prati. Silva v. porczs de 
pasnagw. 

The English translation is as follows : 

In Brixistan Hundred. 
The king holds Bermundesye. Earl Herald held it 
[before]. At that time it was rated at thirteen hides; now, 
at twelve. The arable land is eight carrucates \or plow- 
lands]. There is one carrucate in demesne, and twenty-five 
villans, and thirty-three bordars, with one carrucate. There 
is a new and handsome church, with twenty acres of 
meadow, and woodland for five hogs in pasnage [pasturage] 
time. 

But we must pass on to the conclusion of the 
story. About the year 1082, Queen Matilda's 



236 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

health began seriously to decline. She was 
harassed by a great many anxieties and cares 
connected with the affairs of state which de- 
volved upon her, and arising from the situa- 
tion of her family : these anxieties produced 
great dejection of spirits, and aggravated, if 
they did not wholly cause, her bodily disease. 
She was at this time in Normandy. One great 
source of her mental suffering was her anxiety 
in respect to one of her daughters, who, as 
well as herself, was declining in health. For- 
getting her own danger in her earnest desires 
for the welfare of her child, she made a sort of 
pilgrimage to a monastery which contained the 
shrine of a certain saint, who, as she imag- 
ined, had power to save her daughter. She 
laid a rich present on the slirine ; she offered 
before it most earnest prayers, imploring, with 
tears of bitter grief, the intercession of the 
saint, and manifesting every outward symbol 
of humility and faith. She took her place in 
the religious services of the monastery, and 
conformed to its usages, as if she had been in 
the humblest private station. But all was in 
vain. The health of her beloved daughter 
continued to fail, until at length she died; and 
Matilda, growing herself more feeble, and 
almost broken-hearted through grief, shut her- 
self up in the palace at Caen. 

It was in the same palace which William had 
built, within his monastery, many long years 



THE CONCLUSION. 237 

before, at the time of their marriage. Matilda 
looked back to that period, and to the buoyant 
hopes and bright anticipations of power, glory, 
and happiness which then filled her heart, with 
sadness and sorrow. The power and the glory 
had been attained, and in a measure tenfold 
greater than she had imagined, but the happi- 
ness had never come. Ambition had been con- 
tending unceasingly for twenty years, among 
all the branches of her familj^, against domes- 
tic peace and love. She possessed, herself, an 
aspiring mind, but the principles of maternal 
and conjugal love were stronger in her heart 
than those of ambition ; and yet she was com- 
pelled to see ambition bearing down and de- 
stroying love in all its forms everywhere 
around her. Her last days were imbittered by 
the breaking out of new contests between her 
husband and her son. Matilda sought for 
peace and comfort in multiplying her religious 
services and observances. She fasted, she 
prayed, she interceded for the forgiveness of 
her sins with many tears. The monks cele- 
brated mass at her bedside, and made, as she 
thought, by renewing the sacriiice of Christ, a 
fresh propitiation for her sins. William, who 
was then in Normandy, hearing of her forlorn 
and unhappy condition, came to see her. He 
arrived just in time to see her die. 

They conveyed her body from the palace in 
her husband's monastery at Caen to the con- 

17 



238 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

vent which she had built. It was received 
there in solemn state, and deposited in the 
tomb. For centuries afterward there remained 
many memorials of her existence and her great- 
ness there, in paintings, embroideries, sacred 
gifts, and records, which have been gradually 
wasted away by the hand of time. They have 
not, however, wholly disappeared, for travelers 
who visit the spot find that many memorials 
and traditions of Matilda linger there still. 

William himself did not live many years 
after the death of his wife. He was several 
years older than she. In fact, he was now 
considerably advanced in age. He became 
extremely corpulent as he grew old, which, as 
he was originally of a large frame, made him 
excessively unwieldy. The inconvenience re- 
sulting from this habit of body was not the 
only evil that attended it. It affected his 
health, and even threatened to end in serious 
if not fatal disease. While he was thus made 
comparatively helpless in body by the infirmi- 
ties of his advancing age, he wr,s nevertheless 
as active and restless in spirit as ever. It was, 
however, no longer the activity of youth and 
hope and progress which animated him, but 
rather the fitful uneasiness with which age agi- 
tates itself under the vexations which it some- 
times has to endure, or struggles convulsively 
at the approach of real or imaginary dangers, 
threatening the possessions which it has been 



THE CONCLUSION. 239 

the work of life to gain. The dangers in 
William's case were real, not imaginary. He 
was continually threatened on every side. In 
fact, the very year before he died the dis- 
sensions between himself and Eobert broke out 
anew, and he was obliged, unwieldy and help- 
less as he was, to repair to Normandy, at the 
head of an armed force, to quell the disturb- 
ances which Eobert and his partisans had 
raised. 

Kobert was countenanced and aided at this 
time by Philip, the King of France, who had 
always been King William's jealous and im- 
placable rival. Philip, who, as will be recol- 
lected, was very young when William asked 
his aid at the time of his invasion of England, 
was now in middle life, and at the height of 
bis power. As he had refused William his 
aid, he was naturally somewhat envious and 
jealous of his success, and he was always ready 
to take part against him. He now aided and 
abetted Eobert in his turbulence and insubor- 
dination, and ridiculed the helpless infirmities 
of the aged king. 

While William was in Normandy he sub- 
mitted to a course of medical treatment, in 
the hope of diminishing his excessive corpu- 
lency, and relieving the disagreeable and dan- 
gerous symptoms which attended it. While 
thus in his physician's hands, he was, of 
course, confined to his chamber. Philip, in 



240 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

ridicule, called it "being in the straw." He 
asked some one who appeared at his court, 
having recently arrived from Normandy, 
whether the old woman of England was still in 
the straw. Some miserable talebearer, such 
as everywhere infest society at the present day, 
who delight in quoting to one friend what they 
think will excite their anger against another, 
repeated these words to William. Sick as he 
was, the sarcasm aroused him to a furious 
paroxysm of rage. He swore by "God's 
brightness and resurrection" that, when he 
got out again, he would kindle such fires in 
Philii/s dominions in commemoration of his 
delivery, as should make his realms too hot to 
hold him. 

He kept his word — at least so far as respects 
the kindling of the fires ; but the fires, instead 
of making Philip's realms too hot to hold him, 
by a strange yet just retribution, were simply 
the means of closing forever the mortal career 
of the hand that kindled them. The circum- 
stances of this final scene of the great con- 
queror's earthly history were these: 

In the execution of his threat to make 
Philip's dominions too hot to hold him, Will- 
iam, as soon as he was able to mount his 
horse, headed an expedition, and crossed the 
frontiers of Normandy, and moved forward into 
the heart of France, laying waste the country, 
as he advanced, with fire and sword. He came 



THE CONCLUSION. 241 

soon to the town of Mantes, a town upon the 
Seine, directly on the road to Paris. Will- 
iam's soldiers attacked the town with furious 
impetuosity, carried it by assault, and set it 
on fire. William followed them in, through 
the gates, glorying in the fulfillment of his 
threats of vengeance. Some timbers from a 
burning house had fallen into the street, and, 
burning there, had left a smoldering bed of 
embers, in which the fire was still remaining. 
William, excited with the feelings of exulta- 
tion and victory, was riding unguardedly on 
through the scene of ruin he had made, issuing 
orders, and shouting in a frantic manner as he 
went, when he was suddenly stopped by a 
violent recoil of his horse from the burning 
embers, on which he had stepped, and which 
had been concealed from view by the ashes 
which covered them. William, unwieldy and 
comparatively helpless as he was, was thrown 
with great force upon the pommel of the sad- 
dle. He saved himself from falling from the 
horse, but he immediately found that he had 
sustained some serious internal injury. He 
was obliged to dismount, and to be conveyed 
away, by a very sudden transition, from the 
dreadful scene of conflagration and vengeance 
which he had been enacting, to the solemn 
chamber of death. They made a litter for 
him, and a corps of strong men was designated 



242 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

to bear the heavy and now helpless burden back 
to Normandy. 

They took the suffering monarch to Rouen. 
The ablest physicians were summoned to his 
bedside. After examining his case, they con- 
cluded that he must die. The tidings threw 
the unhappy patient into a state of extreme 
anxiety and terror. The recollection of the 
thousand deeds of selfish ambition and cruelty, 
which he had been perpetrating, he said, all 
his days, filled him with remorse. He shrunk 
back with invincible dread from the hour, now 
so rapidly approaching, when he was to ap- 
pear in judgment before God, and answer, like 
any common mortal, for his crimes. He had 
been accustomed all his life to consider himself 
as above all law, superior to all power, and be- 
yond the reach of all judicial question. But 
now his time had come. He who had so often 
made others tremble, trembled now in his turn, 
with an acuteness of terror and distress which 
only the boldest and most high-handed offend- 
ers ever feel. He cried bitterly to God for 
forgiveness, and brought the monks around 
him to help him with incessant prayers. He 
ordered all the money that he had on hand to 
be given to the poor. He sent commands to 
have the churches which he had burned at 
Mantes rebuilt, and the other injuries which 
he had effected in his anger repaired. In a 
word, he gave himself very earnestly to the 



THE CONCLUSION. 243 

work of attempting, by all the means considered 
most efficacious in those days, to avert and ap- 
pease the dreaded anger of heaven. 

Of his three oldest sons, Kobert was away ; 
the quarrel between him and his father had 
become irreconcilable, and he would not come 
to visit him, even in his dying hours. Will- 
iam Eufus and Henry were there, and they re- 
mained very constantly at their father's bed- 
side — not, however, from a principle of filial 
affection, but because they wanted to be pres- 
ent when he should express his last wishes in 
respect to the disposal of his dominions. 
Such an expression, though oral, would be 
binding as a will. When, at length, the king 
gave his dying directions in respect to the suc- 
cession, it appeared that, after all, he con- 
sidered his right to the English throne as very 
doubtful in the sight of God. He had, in a 
former part of his life, promised Normandy to 
Eobert, as his inheritance, when he himself 
should die ; and though he had so often re- 
fused to surrender it to him while he himself 
continued to live, he confirmd his title to the 
succession now. ''I have promised it to him," 
he said, "and I keep my promise; and yet I 
know that that will be a miserable country 
which is subject to his government. He is a 
proud and foolish knave, and can never pros- 
per. As for my kingdom of England," he 
continued, "I bequeath it to no one, for it was 



244 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

not bequeathed to me. I acquired it by force, 
and at the price of blood. I leave it in the 
hands of God, only wishing that my son Will- 
iam Kufus may have it, for he has been sub- 
missive to me in all things. 

"And what do you give me, father?" asked 
Henry eagerly, at this point. 

"I give you," said the king, **five thousand 
pounds from my treasury." 

"But what shall I do with my five thousand 
pounds," asked Henry, "if you do not give 
me either house or land?" 

"Be quiet, my son," rejoined the king, 
"and trust in God. Let your brothers go be- 
fore you ; your turn will come after theirs." 

The object which had kept the young men at 
their father's bedside having been now at- 
tained, they both withdrew. Henry went to 
get his money, and William Eufus set off im- 
mediately for England, to prepare the way for 
his own accession to the throne, as soon as his 
father should be no more. 

The king determined to be removed from his 
castle in Bouen to a monastery which was 
situated at a short distance from the city, with- 
out the walls. The noise of the city disturbed 
him, and, besides, he thought he should feel 
safer to die on sacred ground. He was ac- 
cordingly removed to the monastery. There, 
on the 10th of September, he was awakened in 
the morning by hearing the oity bells ringing. 



THE CONCT,USION. 245 

He asked what it meant. He was told that 
the bells were ringing for the morning service 
at the church of St. Mary. He lifted up his 
hands, looked to heaven, and said, "I com- 
mend myself to my Lady Mary, the holy 
mother of God, " and almost immediately ex- 
pired. 

The readers of history have frequent occasion 
to be surprised at the sudden and total change 
which often takes place at the moment of the 
death of a mighty sovereign, and even some- 
times before his death, in the indications of 
the respect and consideration with which his 
attendants and followers regard him. In 
William's case, as has happened in many 
other cases since, the moment he ceased to 
breathe he was utterly abandoned. Everybody 
fled, carrying with them, as they went, what- 
ever they could seize from the chamber — the 
arms, the furniture, the dresses, and the plate; 
for all these articles became their perquisities 
on the decease of their master. The almost 
incredible statement is made that the heartless 
monsters actually stripped the dead body of 
their sovereign, to make sure of all their dues, 
and left it naked on the stone floor, while they 
bore their prizes to a place of safety. The 
body lay in this neglected state for many 
hours; for the tidings of the great monarch's 
death, which was so sudden at last, produced, 
as it spread, universal excitement and appre- 



246 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

hension. No one knew to what changes the 
event would lead, what wars would follow be- 
tween the sons, or what insurrections or rebel- 
lions might have been secretly formed, to break 
out suddenly when this crisis should have 
arrived. Thus the whole community were 
thrown into a state of excitement and confusion. 

The monks and lay brethren of the monastery 
at length came in, took up the body, and pre- 
pared it for burial. They then brought 
crosses, tapers, and censers, and began to offer 
prayers and to chant requiems for the repose 
of the soul of the deceased. They sent also to 
the Archishop of Eouen, to know what was to 
be done with the body. The archbishop gave 
orders that it should be taken to Caen, and be 
deposited there in the monastery which Will- 
iam had erected at the time of his marriage. 

The tale which the ancient historians have 
told in respect to the interment is still more 
extraordinary, and more inconsistent with all 
the ideas we naturally form of the kind of con- 
sideration and honor which the remains of so 
great a potentate would receive at the hands of 
his household and his oflScers of state, than 
the account of his death. It is said that all 
the members of his household, and all his 
oflScers, immediately after his decease, aban- 
doned the town — all eagerly occupied in plans 
and maneuvers to secure their positions under 
the new reign. Some went in pursuit of 



THE CONCLUSION. 247 

Robert, and some to follow William Eufus. 
Henry locked up his money in a strong box, 
well ironed, and went off with it to find some 
place of security. There was nobody left to 
take the neglected body to the grave. 

At last a countryman was found who under- 
took to transport the heavy burden from Eouen 
to Caen. He procured a cart and conveyed it 
from the monastery to the river, where it was 
put on board a vessel, and taken down the 
Seine to its mouth, and thence by sea to Caen. 
The Abbot of St. Stephen's, which was the 
name of William's monastery there, came, 
with some monks and a procession of the 
people, to accompany the body to the abbey. 
As this procession was moving along, however, 
a fire broke out in the town, and the attend- 
ants, actuated either by a sense of duty requir- 
ing them to aid in extinguishing the flames, or 
by curiosity to witness the conflagration, aban- 
doned the funeral cortege. The procession was 
broken up, and the whole multitude, clergy 
and laity, went off to the fire, leaving the 
coffin, with its bearers, alone. The bearers, 
however, went on, and conveyed their charge to 
the church within the abbey walls. 

When the time arrived for the interment, a 
great company assembled to witness the cere- 
monies. Stones had been taken up in the 
church floor, and a grave dug. A stone coffin, 
a sort of sarcophagus, had been prepared, and 



248 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 

placed in the grave as a receptacle for the 
body. When all was ready, and the body was 
about to be let down, a man suddenly came 
forward from the crowd and arrested the pro- 
ceedings. He said that the land on which the 
abbey stood belonged to him ; that William 
had taken forcible possession of it, for the 
abbey, at the time of his marriage ; that he, 
the owner, had been compelled thus far to sub- 
mit to this wrong, inasmuch as he had, during 
William's lifetime, no means of redress, but 
now he protested against the spoliation. "The 
laad, " he said, "is mine; it belonged to my 
father. I have not sold it, or forfeited it, nor 
pledged it, nor given it. It is my right. I 
claim it. In the name of God, I forbid you 
to put the body of the spoiler there, or to 
cover him with my ground." 

When the excitement and surprise which 
this denunciation had awakened had subsided a 
little, the bishops called this sudden claimant 
aside, examined the proofs of his allegations, 
and, finding that the case was truly as he stated 
it, they paid him, on the spot, a sum equal to 
the value of ground enough for a grave, and 
promised to take immediate measures for the 
payment of the rest. The remonstrant then 
consented that the interment might proceed. 

In attempting to let the body down into the 
place prepared for it, they found that the sar- 
cophagus was too small. They undertook to 



THE CONCLUSION. 251 

force the body in. In attempting this, the 
coffin was broken, and the body, already, 
through the long delays, advanced in decom- 
position, was burst. The monks brought iu- 
cense and perfumes, and burned and sprinkled 
them around the place, but in vain. The 
church was so offensive that everybody aban- 
doned it at once, except the workmen who re- 
mained to fill the grave. 

While these things were transpiring in Nor- 
mandy, William Kufus had hastened to Eng- 
land, taking with him the evidences of his 
father's dying wish that he should succeed him 
on the English throne. Before he reached head- 
quarters there, he heard of his father's death, 
and he succeeded in inducing the Norman chief- 
tains to proclaim him king. Eobert's friends 
made an effort to advance his claims, but they 
could do nothing effectual for him, and so it 
was soon settled, by a treaty between the 
brothers, that William Eufus should reign in 
England, while Eobert was to content himself 
with his father's ancient domain of Normandy. 



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GIONS OF THE WORLD. With 50 illustrations. 

In description, even of the most common-place things, his power 
is often perfectly marvellous. Macaulay says of Swift: " Under 
a plain garb and ungainly deportment were concealed some of the 
choicest gifts that ever have been bestowed on any of the children 
of men — rare powers of observation, brilliant art, grotesque inven- 
tion, humor of the mo-t austere flavor, yet exquisitely delicious, 
eloquence singularly pure, manly and perspicuous." 

MOTHER GOOSE'S RHYMES, JINGLES AND FAIRY 
TALES. With 300 illustrations. 

" In this edition an excellent choice has been made from the 
standard fiction of the little ones. The abundant pictures are well- 
drawn and graceful, the effect frequently striking and always deco- 
rative." — Critic. 

" Only to see the book is to wish to give it to every child one 
knows. ' ' — Queen. 

LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. Compiled from authoritative sources. With 
portraits of the Presidents ; and also of the unsuccessful 
candidates for the office ; as well as the ablest of the 
Cabinet officers. 

This book should be in every home and school library. It tells, 
in an impartial way, the story of the political history of the United 
States, from the first Constitutional convention to the last Presi- 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



dential nominations, it is just the book for intelligent boys, and it 
will help to make them intelligent and patriotic citizens. 

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE IN THE FROZEN 
SEA. With 70 illustrations. Compiled from authorized 
sources. 

We here have brought together the records of the attempts to 
reach the North Pole. Our object being to recall the stories of the 
early voyagers, and to narrate the recent efforts of gallant adven- 
turers of various nationalities to cross the " unknown and inacces- 
ible " threshold ; and to show how much can be accomplished by 
indomitable pluck and steady perseverance. Portraits and numer- 
ous illustrations help the narration. 

ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY. By the Rev. 
J. G. Wood. With 80 illustrations. 

Wood's Natural History needs no commendation. Its author 
has done more than any other writer to popularize the study. His 
work is known and admired overall the civilized world. The sales 
of his works in England and America have been enormous. The 
illustrations in this edition are entirely new, striking and life-like. 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles 
Dickens. With 50 illustrations. 

Dickens grew tired of listening to his children memorizing the 
old fashioned twaddle that went under the name of English his- 
tory. He thereupon wrote a book, in his own peculiarly happy 
style, primarily for the educational a Ivantage of his own children, 
but was prevailed upon to publish the work, and make its use gen- 
eral. Its success was instantaneous and abiding. 

»BLACK BEAUTY; The Autobiography of a Horse. By 
Anna Sewell. With 50 illustrations 

This NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION is sure to command attention. 
Wherever children are, whether boys or girls, there this Autobiog- 
raphy should be It inculcates habits of kindness to all members 
of the animal creation. The literary merit of the book is excellent. 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. With 
50 illustrations. Contains the most favorably known of 
the stories. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for the young. It 
^ )rms an excellent intr ductinn to hose immortal tales which have 
helped so long to keep thj weary world young. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. By Hans Christian An- 
dersen. With 77 illustrations. 

The spirit of high moral teaching, and the delicacy of sentiment, 
feeling and expression that pervade these tales make these won- 
derful creations not only attractive to the young, but equally accept- 
able to those of mature years, who are able to understand their 
real significance and appreciate the depth of their meaning. 

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. With 50 illustrations. 

These tales of the Brothers Grimm have carried their names into 
every household of the civilized world. 

The Tales are a wonderful collection, as interesting, from a lit- 
erary point of view, as they are delightful as stories. 

GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR; A History for Youth. By 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 60 illustrations. 

The story of America from the landing of the Puritans to the 
acknowlcdgmeni withont reserve of the Independence of the 
United States, told with all the elegance, simplicity, grace, clear- 
ness and force for which Hawthorne is conspicuously noted. 

FLOWER FABLES. By Louisa May Alcott. With colored 
and plain illustrations. 

A series of very interesting fairy tales by the most charming of 
American story-tellers. 

AUNT MARTHA'S CORNER CUPBOARD. By Mary 
and Elizabeth Kirby. With 60 illustrations. 

Stories about Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Rice and Chinaware, and 
other accessories of the well-kept Cupboard. A book full of in- 
terest for all the girls and many of the boys. 

WATER- BABIES; A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. By 
Charles Kingsley. With 94 illustrations. 

" Come read me my riddle, each good little man ; 
If you cannot read it, no grown-up folk can." 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. By 
Prescott Holmes. With 70 illustrations. 

A graphic and full history of the Rebellion of the American Col- 
onies from the yoke and oppression of England, with the causes 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



that led thereto, and including an account of the second war with 
Great Britain, and the War with Mexico. 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. By 
Prescott Holmes. With 80 illustrations. 

A correct and impartial account of the greatest civil war in the 
annals of history. Both of these histories of American wars nre 
a necessary part of the education of all intelligent American boys 
and girls 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH 
SPAIN. By Prescott Holmes. With 89 illustrations 

This history of our war with Spain, in 1898, presents in a plain, 
easy style the splendid achievements of our army and navy, and 
the prominent figures that came into the public view during that 
period. Its glowing descriptions, wealth of anecdote, accuracy • f 
statement and profusion of illustration make it a most desirable 
gift book for young readers. 

HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. By 
Hartwell James. With 65 illustrations. 

The story of our navy is one of the most brilliant pages in the 
wjrld's history. The sketches and exploits contained in this vol- 
ume cover our entire naval history from the days of the honest, 
rough sailors of Revolutionary times, with their cutlasses and 
boarding pikes, to the brief war of 1898, when our superbly ap- 
pointed warships destroyed Spain's proud cruisers by the merci- 
less accuracy of their fire. 

MILITARY HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
By Hartwell James. With 97 illustrations. 

In this volume the brave lives and heroic deeds of our military 
heroes, from Paul Revere to Lawton, are told in the most captiva- 
ting manner. The material for the work has been gathered from 
the North and the South alike. The volume presents all the im- 
portant facts in a manner enabling the young people of our united 
and prosperous land to easily become familiar with the command- 
ing figures that have arisen in our military history. 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; or Life Among the Lowly. By 
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. With 90 illustrations. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 7 

The unfailing interest in the famous old story suggested the need 
of an edition specially prepared for young readers, and elaborately 
illustrated. This edition completely fills that want. 

SEA KINGS AND NAVAL HEROES. By Hartwell 
James. With 50 illustrations. 

The most famous sea battles of the world with sketches of the 
lives, enterprises and achievements of men who have become fam- 
ous in naval history. They are stories of brave lives in times of 
trial and danger, charmingly told for young people. 

POOR BOYS' CHANCES. By John Habberton. With 
50 illustrations. 

There is a fascination about the writings of the author of 
" Helen's Babies," from which none can escape. In this charm- 
ing volume, Mr. liabberton tells the boys of America how they 
can attain the highest positions in the land, without the struggles 
and privations endured by poor boys who rose to eminence and 
fame in former times. 

ROMULUS, the Founder of Rome. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In a plain and connected narrative, the author tells the stories 
of the founder of Rome and his great ancestor, .l^neas. These 
are of necessity somewhat legendary ia character but ate pre- 
sented precisely as they have come down to us from ancient times. 
They are prefaced by an account of the life and inventions of Cad- 
mus, the " Father of the Alphabet," as he is often called. 

CYRUS THE GREAT, the Founder of the Persian Empire. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 40 illustrations. 

For nineteen hundred years, the story of the founder of the an- 
cient Persian empire has been read by every generation of man- 
kind. The story of the life and actions of Cyrus, as told by the 
author, presents vivid pictures of the magnificence of a monarchy 
that rose about five hundred years before the Christian era, and 
rolled on in undisturbed magnitude and glory for many centuries. 

ADVENTURES IN TOYLAND. By Edith King Hull. 
With 70 illustrations by Alice B. Woodward. 

The sayings and doinos of the dwellers in toyland, related by 
one of them to a dear little girl. It is a delightful book for chil- 
dren, and admirably illustrated. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



DARIUS THE GREAT, King of the Medes and Persians. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 34 illustrations. 

No great exploits marked the career of this monarch, who was 
at one time the absolute sovereign of nearly one-half of the world. 
He reached his high position by a stratagem, and left behind him 
no strong impressions of personal character, yet, the history of his 
life and reign should be read along with those of Cyrus, Coesar, 
Hannibal and Alexander. 

XERXES THE GREAT, King of Persia. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 39 illustrations. 

For ages the name of Xerxes has been associated in the minds 
of men with the idea of the highest attainable human magnificence 
and grandeur. He was the sovereign of the ancient Persian em- 
pire at the height of its prosperity and power. The invasion of 
Greece by the Persian hordes, the battle of Thermopylae, the burn- 
ing of Athens, and the defeat of the Persian galleys at Salamis are 
chapters of thrilling interest. 

THE ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE. By Miss 
Mulock, author of John Halifax, Gentleman, etc. With 
18 illustrations. 

One of the best of Miss Murlock's charming stories for children. 
All the situations are amusing and are sure to please youthful 
readers. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, King of Macedon. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 51 illustrations. 

Born heir to the throne of Macedon, a country on the confines 
of Europe and Asia, Alexander crowded into a brief career of 
twelve years a brilliant series of exploits. The readers of to-day 
will find pleasure and profit in the history of Alexander the Great, 
a potentate before whom ambassadors and princes from nearly all 
the nations of the earth bowed in humility. 

PYRRHUS, King of Epirus. By Jacob Abbott. With 45 
illustrations. 

The story of Pyrrhus is one of the ancient narratives which has 
been told and retold for many centuries in the literature, eloquence 
and poetry of all civilized nations. While possessed of extraordi- 
nary ability as a military leader, Pyrrhus actually accomplished 
nothing, but did mischief on a gigantic scale. He was naturally 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



of a noble and generous spirit, but only succeded in perpetrating 
crimes against the peace and welfare of mankind. 

HANNIBAL, the Carthaginian. By Jacob Abbott. With 
37 illustrations. 

Hannibal's distinction as a warrior was gained during the des- 
perate contests between Rome and Carthage, known as the Punic 
wars. Entering the scene when his country was engaged in peace- 
ful traffic with the various countries of the known world, he turned 
its energies into military aggression, conquest and war, becoming 
himself one of the greatest military heroes the world has ever 
known. 

MIXED_ PICKLES. By Mrs. E. M. Field. With 31 illus- 
trations by T. Pym. 

A remarkably entertaining story for young people. The reader 
is introduced to a charming little girl whose mishaps while trying 
to do good are very appropriately termed " Mixed Pickles." 

JULIUS C^SAR, the Roman Conqueror. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 44 illustrations. 

The life and actions of Julius Cnesar embrace a period in Roman 
history beginning with the civil wars of Marius and Sylla and end- 
ing with the tragic death of Cresar Imperator. The work is an 
accurate historical account of the life and times of one of the great 
military figures in history, in fact, it is history itself, and as such is 
especially commended to the readers of the present generation. 

ALFRED THE GREAT, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 40 illustrations. 

In a certain sense, Alfred appears in history as the founder of 
the British monarchy : his predecessors having governed more like 
savage chieftains than English kings. The work has a special 
value for young readers, for the character of Alfred was that of an 
honest, conscientious and far-seeing statesman. The romantic 
story of Godwin furnishes the concluding chapter of the volume. 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 43 illustrations. 

The life and times of William of Normandy have always been a 
fruitful theme for the historian. "War and pillage and conquest 
were at least a part of the everyday business of men in both Eng- 



Id ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

land and France : and the story of William as told by the author 
of this volume makes some of the most fascinating pages in his- 
tory. It is especially delightful to young readers. 

Ht:RNANDO CORTEZ, the Conqueror of Mexico. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 30 illustrations. 

In this volume the author gives vivid pictures of the wild and 
adventurous career of Cortez and his companions in the conquest 
of Mexico. Many good motives were united with those of ques- 
tionable character, in the prosecution of his enterprise, but in 
those days it was a matter of national ambition to enlarge the 
boundaries of nations and to extend their commerce at any cost. 
The career of Cortez is one of absorbing interest. 

THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE. By Miss Mulock. With 
24 illustrations. 

The author styles it "A Parable for Old and Young." It is in her 
happiest vein and delightfully interesting, especially to youthful 
readers. 

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. By Jacob Abbott. With 
45 illustrations. 

The story of Mary Stuart holds a prominent place in the present 
series of historical narrations. It has had many tellings, for the 
melancholy story of the unfortunate queen has always held a high 
place in the estimation of successive generations of readers. Her 
story is full of romance and pathos, and the reader is carried along 
by conflicting emotions of wonder and sympathy. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In strong contrast to the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, is that 
of Elizabeth, Queen of England. They were cousins, yet im- 
placal>]e foes. Elizabeth's reign was in many ways a glorious one, 
and her successes gained her the applause of the world. The 
stirring tales of Drake, Hawkins and other famous mariners of 
her lime have been incorporated into the story of Elizabeth's life 
and reign. 

KING CHARLES THE FIRST, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 41 illustrations. 

The well-known figures in the stormy reign of Charles I. are 
brought forward in this narrative of his life and times. It is his- 
tory told in the most fascinating manner, and embraces the early 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



life of Charles ; the court of James I. ; struggles between Charles 
and the Parliament; the Civil war ; the trial and execution of the 
king. The narrative is impartial and holds the attention of the 
reader. 

KING CHARLES THE SECOND, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 38 illustrations. 

Beginning with his infancy, the life of the " Merry Monarch " 
is related in the author's inimitable style. His reign was signal- 
ized by many disastrous events, besides those that related to his 
personal troubles and embarrassments. There were unfortunate 
wars ; naval defeats ; dangerous and disgraceful plots and con- 
spiracies. Trobule sat very lightly on the shoulders of Charles II., 
however, and the cares of state were easily forgotten in the society 
of his court and dogs. 

THE SLEEPY KING. By Aubrey Hopwood and Seymour 
Hicks. With 77 illustrations by Maud Trelawney. 

A charmingly-told Fairy Tale, full of delight and entertain- 
ment. The illustrations are original and striking, addine creatlv 
to the interest of the text. & & j 

MARIA ANTOINETTE, Queen of France. By John S. fl, 
Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The tragedy of Maria Antoinette is one of the most mournful in 
the histoty of the world. " Her beauty dazzled the whole king, 
dom, says Lamartine. Her lofty and unbending spirit undei 
unspeakable indignities and atrocities, enlists and holds the sympa^ 
thies of the readers of to-day, as it has dond in the past. 

MADAME ROLAND, A Heroine of the French Revolution. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The French Revolution developed few, if any characters more- 
worthy of notice than that of Madame Roland. The absence of 
playmates, in her youth, inspired her with an insatiate thirst for 
knowledge, and books became her constant companions in every 
unoccupied hour. She fell a martyr to the tyrants of the French 
Revolution, but left behind her a career full of instruction tha^, 
never fails to impress itself upon the reader. 

JOSEPHINE, Empress of France. By Jacob Abbott. Witl\ 
40 illustrations. 



12 ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

Maria Antoinette beheld the dawn of the French Revolution ; 
Madcime Roland perished under the lurid glare of its high noon ; 
Josephine saw it fade into darkness. She has been called the 
" Star of Napoleon;" and it is certain that she added luster to 
his brilliance, and that her persuasive influence was ofien exerted 
to win a friend or disarm an adversary. The lives of the Empress 
Josephine, of Maria Antoinette, and of Madame Roland are 
especially commended to young lady readers. 

TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. By Charles and Mary 
Lamb. With 80 illustrations. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for young people, but 
a clear and definite outline of each play is presented. Such episodes 
or incidental sketches of character as are not absolutely necessary 
to the development of the tales are omitted, while the many moral 
lessons that lie in Shakespeare's plays and make them valuable in 
the training of the young are retained. The book is winning, help- 
ful and an effectual guide to the "inner shrine" of the great 
dramatist. 

MAKERS OF AMERICA. By Hartwell James. With 75 
illustrations. 

This volume contains attractive and suggestive sketches of the 
lives and deeds of men who illustrated some special phase in the 
political, religious or social lif' of our country, from its settlement 
to the close of the eighteenth century. It affords an opportunity 
for young readers to become easily familiar with these characters 
and their historical relations to the building of our Republic. An 
account of the discovery of America prefaces the work, 

A WONDER BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. By 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 50 illustrations. 

In this volume the genius of Hawthorne has shaped anew 
wonder tales that have been hallowed by an antiquity of two or 
three thousand years. Seeming " never to have been made" they 
are legitimate subjects for every age to clothe with its own fancy 
as to manners and sentiment, and its own views of morality. The 
volume has a charm fo'' old and young alike, for the author has 
not thought it necessary to " write downward " in order to meet 
the comprehension of children. 













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